


The Little Things Unknown

by coaster



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Cap_Ironman Holiday Gift Exchange 2015, Dreams and Nightmares, Ghost!Steve, Ghostbusters!AU, Happy Ending, M/M, POV Alternating, Paranormal violence, Pseudoscience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-07 08:41:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 27,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5450384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coaster/pseuds/coaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark has three certainties in life: one, that science was where his mind worked best; two, that, since ghosts had become a science, anything was possibe; three, that he would never know if Captain America was that much of a paragon because the man was long dead.</p><p>The subject of Certainty Three might be sitting at the foot of his bed.</p><p>~</p><p>Steve is a ghost. The Avengers bust ghosts. And Tony isn't sure what to make of Cap here. But hey, at least his other hauntings have stopped, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. (Prologue) Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grue/gifts).



> This is for [grue](http://archiveofourown.org/users/grue/pseuds/grue), for the 2015 Captain America/Iron Man Holiday Gift Exchange! The prompt I latched on to was:  
>  _MCU: Ghostbusters AU- the Avengers go after ghosts instead of villains, or it's a mission from Fury who is so sick of this shit, whatever._
> 
> I latched on, and flew with it. I flew very far with it.
> 
> So here it is! A fusion Ghostbusters AU that might have a little less ghost busting than one would expect, filled with as many tropes and clichés I could feasibly fit in. I hope you like it, grue!
> 
> With regards to the timeline, this takes place just after the events of Iron Man 2. The events that have occurred are, of course, slightly different but they roughly follow MCU canon.
> 
> Thank you to Kay for the speedy beta and for the acronym! Yes, I write fic haha.... I took forever and I'm sorry for my moaning that I took forever. All remaining errors are my own.
> 
> Please trust that the Happy Ending tag actually means a Happy Ending in the Happy sense!

There were hands clawing at his chest again, holding him down. They were clawing through his skin, through his ribs, and right into his heart. He felt the pain down to his bones and he screamed.

_You think explosion can stop me, Tony?_

Through his half-consciousness, he heard a familiar wheezing laugh, and saw the crooked smile of Ivan Vanko flash at him from beyond the darkness surrounding him.

 _No,_ he tried to say, but his throat was closed tight and his chest was throbbing with every breath he couldn’t take. _No._

He strained against the hands, thrashing, but it only invited claws to dig into his mouth and press sharply on his tongue. He shook his head violently, wincing when they pressed in harder, gagging when they surged into his throat.

Something cold and heavy crawled up his legs, brushing along his sides, and pressed down onto his shoulders. Vanko’s face, contorted grotesquely, rose into Tony’s view and Tony spat out a gargled obscenity. He tried to shake off the cold grip but Vanko only laughed maniacal at his weakening struggles. The cold weight crushed down on him, closing him in, darkening his vision.

_Tony. Why don’t you join us?_

Vanko laughed and Tony saw a gnarled hand thrust forward straight into his chest. The pain was blinding, and a chilling numbness spreading from his chest as Vanko’s fist closed over his heart.

_Tony, trust me, we will take good care of you here._

Tony could only whimper as the numbness reached his throat and then his cheeks. Everything was blurring at the edges and he couldn’t feel his body. As his vision slowly tunneled to a point, he thought he saw a streak of color sweep through the darkness.

_Let me have you!_

In a flash of light, the claws vanished and Tony managed to draw in a painless breath. He thought he saw a face with an expression twisted in worry hover over him. He tried to say he was fine, tried to placate the Worried Face but his lips refused to move.

A warmth spread through his chest, languid and slow, soothing and safe, and Tony finally closed his eyes to sleep in peace for the first time in years.


	2. Meet the Good Captain

When Tony had been young, he’d had three certainties in his life: one, that cool logic, the methods of science, would always be where his mind functioned best; two, that the idea of ghosts completely negated his first certainty and thus should be ignored, no matter what his mother or Jarvis had told him to get him into bed; three, that his father had liked Captain America, World War II hero and national icon, better than him and he was never going to find out if Cap was really that much of a paragon because Cap was long dead.

When Tony had been at MIT, two heads shorter and three shades angrier than everyone else present, his second certainty had shattered. A giant marshmallow man had walked the streets of New York and though Tony hadn’t been present, Howard had. And for all of Howard’s failings as a father, he was the source of Tony’s scientific foundation and Tony would not turn away evidence when presented with it. The same thing had happened again, a few years before his parents had died. The damned _Statue of Liberty_ had walked the streets to fight off a giant blob of slime. Once again, a group of middle-aged men had saved the city. Tony, finally, after the death of his parents and Jarvis, had read up all he could of the paranormal. He had hoped, maybe, to see them again.

He’d learned about psychokinetic energies, their different classes of manifestation, how to detect them, how to capture them, how to eliminate them. He’d found one of the men involved in both major Ghost incidences, one Dr. Egon Spengler, but the correspondence had been cut short and his trove of knowledge had stopped with the disappearance of the scientist. He’d made do with investigating the paranormal on the side, as a hobby.

After a lovely holiday to an Afghan cave, a personal haunting from one irate former father figure, and a death scare courtesy of the object in his chest that was supposed to have been keeping him away from death, Tony thought he was doing admirably well in living up to his certainties. Certainty One was holding strong. Certainty Two had reversed itself with new evidence but remained on his list as a reminder for himself to never dismiss concepts so offhandedly, that anything was possible. And while he had never been able to summon his parents or Jarvis’s ghost, the subject of Certainty Three might be sitting at the foot of his bed.

“Howard?”

“Jesus Christ!” Tony shouted, and scrambled away from the voice, landing with a thud on the other side of the bed. As he tried to untangle himself from the sheets, he called for JARVIS and the suit.

“Howard!” The voice came again, louder, closer than Tony would have liked.

Tony finally disentangled himself and staggered away. He found himself in a corner, cursed his sleep-addled brain, and tried to blink the grogginess from his eyes to focus ahead of himself.

A faintly glowing and definitely transparent entity moved toward him through the low light of the morning and Tony could finally make out a tall, broad-shouldered figure in what was distinctly a full Captain America costume. It looked human, seemed to be lucid, wasn’t immediately trying to kill Tony, not affected by the Mansion’s general security, and did not trip JARVIS’s sensors. Was it not a classified entity? What the _fuck._ “JARVIS! Full scan! What is it?”

Tony continued to breathe through his teeth, then glared at one of the ceiling cameras when JARVIS’s response was not forthcoming.

“ _I’m sorry, sir,”_ JARVIS said immediately. “ _My sensors are detecting only a small, insignificant presence of P.K.E. in this room. The levels are difficult to segment from the background and I cannot visualize the entity. However, the Mark Six is hovering and ready behind you. I will lower the glass on your command.”_

“Go ahead, JARVIS,” Tony ordered. The glass lowered and Tony felt the Pacific breeze on the back of his neck. The battered Mark VI hovered inside and landed to Tony’s left with a dull clunk. Controlled by JARVIS, it raised both palms and Tony heard the repulsors charge, the pink glow of protonic energy glowing at its palms. Reassured, Tony turned back to the entity. “Alright, buddy, make with the words before I shoot you in the face.”

“Howard, it’s—“

“Is that all you know how to say? Names?” Tony cut in. “How do you even know Howard?”

“I’m sorry,” the entity said yet again. “Let me explain. I’m not—“

“I don’t look _that_ much like Howard do I?”

“You know,” the entity said, and Tony could make out a tired smile, “I can’t ‘make with the words’ if you keep interrupting me.”

Tony threw his hands up in frustration then gestured for the entity to continue.

“I’m Captain America,” the entity said without further preamble. “Went down in ’45. Probably died and I guess I’m a ghost now. Don’t know how I got here but I’m glad I did when I did.”

Tony felt eyes wandering over his chest and arms. Right. The scratches.

Tony ignored that last comment for now. “I see the costume, buddy,” he folded his arms. “They sell ‘em on Amazon by the boatload. And that’s basic history book knowledge about World War Two. You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

The entity (ghost _?)_ reached up with a frown and scratched at the side of its head. It mouthed something Tony couldn’t make out. “You know Howard? Howard Stark? Are you related to Howard?”

Tony rubbed at his face and tried to not yell. “I’m his son. Anthony Stark. Tony, to you, if you’re into the whole name calling shtick.”

“I thought Howard’s son would know my face but—“

Tony shook his head then circled his fingers at the ceiling, asking for the lights to come on gradually. They faded in, and Tony tried once again to blink the blur away from his eyes. He focused on the ugly sculpture Pepper had placed in his room until his eyes adjusted to the brighter light, to the details of color. He blinked rapidly then squinted back at the figure.

Holy shit.

“Holy shit,” Tony managed to choke out.

The enti—Captain Ameri—Cap nodded, a quirk appearing on his translucent lips. “Steve Rogers, at your service.”

Tony took a step forward and really studied the entity - the ghost - standing before him. It—He looked exactly like in Howard’s old pictures; the flop of his blond hair, the light blue of his eyes, the damned _jaw,_ and that damnably open and earnest expression _._ Cap’s head tilted in a way that was adorably boyish despite what Tony knew of his history. “So, you’re Howard’s boy?”

Tony sobered up immediately. “I’m my own boy, thank you very much.” He signalled for JARVIS to keep the Mark VI on standby and then dropped himself into the armchair by the bed. If this was actually a lucid dream or a hallucination, he was going to make the best out of it. “How’d you get here? Have you always been around? How well did you actually know Howard—“

Tony’s door burst open on the other side of the room and Tony jumped back to his feet as the two PLASM agents slid into combat stance just inside the doorway, weapons raised and charged, goggles down. Cap was now standing on the other side of the bed with his feet apart, hands raised, one forearm held out as if holding something strapped to it.

Clint lowered his ion wand fractionally but Natasha kept her proton pistols aimed steadily at Cap’s chest. The both of them looked towards Tony.

“No P.K.E.,” Clint said, fingers flexing on the Wand, “but you’ve got five seconds before I try to shoot it with everything I’ve got on my back.”

Tony scrambled over his bed and moved to stand beside Cap with his arms outstretched. “It’s Captain America’s Ghost. Really. I would know.”

“That get-up doesn’t prove anything,” Natasha said slowly, head turned back towards Cap. “It could be a look-a-like. What’s something only the real Captain America would know?”

“I—“ Cap started.

“What’s fondue?” Tony asked and turned to Cap to study his expression.

Cap’s translucent face went red. “Bread and cheese,” he blurted out.

The two PLASM agents turned back to Tony.

“That’s him,” Tony said with a jerk of his thumb at Cap.

“How does _that_ prove anything?” Clint asked.

“He didn’t think it meant bread and cheese,” Tony said. Bless Aunt Pegs for the story.

“I can’t believe Howard told you that story,” Cap said, still mortified.

Clint and Natasha lowered their weapons fractionally and raised their goggles. Natasha’s expression was as impassive as ever but Clint was staring wide-eyed at Cap in glee.

Beside Tony, Cap sighed and stood straight again, hands resting on his belt buckle. “Thank you.” He looked at each of them in turn, eyes lingering on Tony’s arc reactor. “To answer Tony’s earlier questions, I don’t know how I got here, I don’t know how long I’ve been around, and I knew Howard reasonably well.” He shrugged. “Wasn’t a hard man to figure out.”

And Certainty Three was going to be fully investigated for revision.

“So,” Clint said loudly, stowing the Wand and clapping his hands together. “Captain _America_. How’s this going to work?”

“Just Steve, please,” Cap—Steve said quickly. “My name is Steve Rogers.”

“We’re sorry, Steve,” Natasha said. She stowed her Pistols and smiled at Steve. “Everyone and everything’s been trying to kill Tony lately and we’re all a little on edge.”

Tony sighed and walked around to the door. “You two, get out,” he said with a shooing motion. “Why are you still in my house? Take Steve, do your introductions. Scan him, interrogate him, cross-check with Fury, whatever. I’ve got cold sweat to wash off and since you insist on waiting on me, I expect coffee and a full breakfast waiting for me when I come out.” He held the door open for them and they filed past with matching eye rolls.

Steve hesitated and walked towards the door. He stopped on the threshold, turning to glance at Tony, or more specifically, Tony’s chest. Tony repeated his shooing gesture and Steve finally turned and left.

Tony closed the door and leaned heavily against it.

Captain America.

“Huh.”

***

When Tony made his way down to the kitchen thirty minutes later, freshly groomed and squeaky clean, and, most importantly, with ointments slathered over the deeper cuts from the night before, he found Steve, Clint, and Natasha chatting animatedly at the island.

“I see friendships have been forged,” Tony said by way of announcing his presence. He pulled out a stool by Natasha and dragged a plate of bacon and eggs toward himself. It had definitely been prepared by his kitchen staff. He was sure Clint would have burnt the eggs just because he could.

As he reached for the single cup of steaming coffee that sat in the middle of the island, Natasha nudged a glass of water at him and gave him a very pointed look. Tony sighed and gulped half down before returning the look.

“—talking. It’s usually something sentimental or, well, extremely angry and violent more often than not, but we’ll be helping you move on in no time. Just tell us anything and everything you want to do.”

“Moving him on, are we?” Tony asked through a mouthful of eggs.

“Yup,” Clint said across from him. “We scanned the hell out of him while you were doing your rich man morning routine. The prelim ID checks out. Definitely a Class Four, and Full Torso even, but somehow zip on paranormal energy signatures. Your toaster put out more P.K.E. on the Meter than Cap here. We even zapped him with Natasha’s Pistols. Nada. He’s going into the special cases. Maybe the Full Imprint category. Or Wandering Souls?” Clint gestured widely with his mug. “And I’m going to need to tell Fury to make a better name for these. It gets confusing.”

“Well I’m not calling them souls,” Tony muttered, thinking of Spengler’s baseless hypotheses on the matter.

“And speaking of souls,” Natasha turned to Tony, “Steve here said you were being attacked by something when he showed up?”

Tony wiped at his mouth with a napkin, avoiding Natasha’s piercing gaze. “Might’ve been Vanko,” he muttered. “He didn’t register on JARVIS’s sensors either, otherwise the alarm would’ve woken me.”

Natasha reached towards his arm and peeled back his sleeves to get a look at his tended cuts. Tony wanted to pull his hand away but he knew better by now. She nodded after seeing Tony’s sloppy and excessive ministrations then turned to Clint. “We’ll have to check the Expo grounds, see if he’s anchored there.”

Clint nodded, still nursing his coffee. He turned to Steve with a squint. “You sure you didn’t appear just to scare off old Vanko from snuffing out Stark?” And then he yelped when someone, Natasha probably, kicked him under the table. Tony was starting to enjoy seeing her fight his fights for him.

Steve shook his head. “If that’s the case, I should be long gone by now, right?”

The PLASM agents nodded in thought but Tony frowned. He still had some questions and tests to run on Cap—Steve. He’s waited decades for this opportunity and he wasn’t going to just see it vanish before him.

“If it helps,” Steve added, “I can feel that light in Tony’s chest,”

Tony choked on his eggs.

“What do you feel from it?” Natasha asked. Tony continued to cough egg out of his throat and she reached around to slap at his back. He gave her a grateful smile and tried to breathe as he processed Steve’s words.

“It feels like it’s just _there,_ pulling at me,” Steve waved at Tony’s arc reactor. “Like a part of me is there.”

And Tony was not going to negate Certainty One by thinking of soulmates. Dammit, Spengler. He rubbed at his throat and thought of science, with logic.

“You’re anchored to the arc reactor?” Tony asked.

“Or the vibranium you made yesterday,” Natasha nudged Tony with her elbow. “Howard’s isotope?”

“Sentimental substance,” Clint nodded. “Valid anchor.”

The three of them nodded at one another and turned to Steve.

“Anything else we should know about? Urges to kill anyone?” Natasha asked.

Steve shook his head.

Clint grinned at Steve. “Then welcome to the twenty-first century. We also have a Hulk and a Norse God.”

And that was how Captain America unofficially joined the Avengers of PLASM.


	3. How Sweet the Sound of Death

Steve is standing in Tony’s workshop. The light is dim and he can’t see beyond five feet around him. He turns and tries to find Tony, or anyone else, and he is met with emptiness. As he weaves around the benches to where he knows the door should be, the details around him change, some features sharpening and some blurring into the haze beyond. The surroundings distort and shuffle again, and suddenly Steve is staring down at Tony working on something at his old holostation.

“Tony?” Steve asks.

“Busy, Cap.” Tony flicks something in and out of the holo-projection. In and out. In and out. It doesn’t appear to be altering anything.

Steve frowns and looks around. The details are a little different; there are benches where no benches had been, and there is a distinct lack of the Iron Man armor. He looks down and sees that Tony looks different, too. His hair is curlier, longer, and his goatee is in a different style. His eyes are also bloodshot and his face is pallid from lack of sleep.

Steve opens his mouth in question but is pushed aside by Pepper Potts, Tony’s ex-personal assistant, current CEO of Stark Industries.

“Tony, you didn’t show at the shareholder’s meeting today,” Pepper says immediately. “I should have expected as much given the party last night, but if it wasn’t for Obadiah, it could have gone horribly. Don’t miss the Board of Directors meeting.” She doesn’t wait for Tony to reply before continuing, checking an item off the list in her arms as she speaks. “Jackson from MedTech needs his proposal either approved or rejected. You’re the one who hired him. He said he would only deal with you. And this is why we don’t let you hire people.” Another check. “Dahlia called again about the engine. She wants to know if you were serious about the collaboration. I told her you were. She said she wants to talk details with you. I scheduled a call for Tuesday.” Another check—

“Hang on,” Steve raises a hand between her and Tony. “Can’t this wait until he’s at least slept for more than three hours?”

Pepper turns to Steve and Steve swallows his harsh tone when he sees the tears in her eyes. He doesn’t know if they’re tears of frustration or anger but it’s probably both and he feels the need to apologize.

“You of all people should know how important it is to do the right thing, Captain,” Pepper says. She sniffs audibly and Steve feels an inch tall. “I was hired to do this job and regardless of whether I like it or not, I’m keeping the company afloat and I intend to keep it that way and I won’t let Tony wreck himself and everything this company is supposed to stand for.” She blinks the tears from her eyes and walks away into the haze, the sound of her shoes clicking and fading.

“This is me,” Tony says from behind Steve. “I know it’s wrong but I do it. I’m just that much of an asshole.” His voice sounded muffled, like he was speaking from behind his hands.

Steve turns, ready to deny it, to offer comfort, anything - but Tony waves his hands at him and returns to his missile designs.

“It’s all I’m good for.”

***

Steve is in a cave lit from above by an open patch of ceiling. Tony is clutching at a rectangular black box. It was plugged into his chest.

There are faceless men standing behind and around Tony, forcing his shoulders back and pushing his head down again and again into a barrel of dirty water. They’re jeering at Tony, calling him a murderer, a god of death, a war profiteer, a whore, a corporate negligee. The box in Tony’s hand is sparking - a battery - and Tony is drowning.

Steve snaps out of his shock and in one swift movement, he kicks the tank of water away, letting it slide across the dirty floor to burst soundlessly against the rocky walls. He catches Tony as he falls but Tony pushes him away, coughing, and suddenly, the scene renews.

The men keep pushing Tony down, calling him names, laughing, throwing water at Tony’s chest and the battery.

Steve rushes forward but everything fades with the light in Tony’s eyes.

***

They are standing in front of a mirror. Tony is leaning on the counter, staring into the mirror at the arc reactor that had been bared. There are sickly looking veins flared from the rim of the reactor, from where it’s implanted into Tony’s chest. Bloody scratches mar his chest, disappearing into his shirt, peeking out at the wrists. Steve takes in the details, horrified, and looks up to Tony’s face.

Tony smiles at him through the mirror, face gaunt and eyes shadowed. “They’ve been finding me,” Tony says, voice pained. “The more I think about it, the more they come. I don’t have the right to keep refusing them,” he swipes at the cuts over his collarbone. “They’re not wrong.”

The scene flashes before Steve can respond and they are standing in a cemetery, surrounded by row upon neat row of white tombstones. Steve recognizes this; they’re in Arlington but he doesn’t know which section.

Tony, dressed in a neat black suit, is looking down at a particular tombstone. Steve tries to make out the name, but can’t. Around them, amongst the tombstones, half-formed figures appear and disappear. Some are in pristine military gear, some are so torn Steve can barely make out their features. Steve looks away and steps up to Tony but Tony doesn’t appear to notice any of it. Steve doesn’t know what to say, so he stands in silence with Tony.

“I’m always afraid of putting Rhodey here,” Tony says at last. “I know he knows what he’s doing, but I can’t control what happens to my weapons when they leave my head. I had to shut it all down. I had to hunt it all down.”

“Mr. Stark!”

Steve turns to see a soldier in modern army gear run toward them around the tombstones. The young man comes to a halt beside Tony with an ecstatic expression and holds out a pen and paper.

“Can I please have your autograph, Mr. Stark?” The young man says. “I’m a big fan of yours, in more ways than one!”

Steve can’t see Tony’s expression but he sees Tony reach out slowly and take the pen and paper, writing a long message and signing it with care before handing it back.

The young man takes it with a joyous smile and Steve almost smiles himself until he sees the young man’s cheeks turn the red and black of burning, and blood blooms all over his army fatigues.

“You killed us,” the young man rasps out through his burnt throat. “You promised to protect us but you killed us!” He lunges at Tony and they fall against a tombstone with a crack. “Let me have you!”

Steve rushes forward to pull the young man off of Tony but he falls through, barely keeping his feet. He looks back and sees the young man straddle Tony, clawing at Tony’s chest and arms. Tony screams and pushes weakly at the young man, and Steve leaps forward for a tackle. He lands on top of the young man and watches with mixed sadness and vindictiveness as the body dissolves in a flash of green light. Steve looks around, back at Tony.

Tony is on his knees, clutching at his glowing chest, eyes unseeing.

“He’s not wrong, you know,” Tony says, and smiles at Steve.


	4. The Night is Yet Long

Steve has been wandering on the earth as a ghost for a month now. He’s unofficially joined PLASM (“Paranormal Life and Spiritual Management,” Clint had told him. “It’s sadomasochism,” Tony had tried to amend) as the only paranormal lifeform of Team Alpha, the Avengers (or the Ghostbusters as Tony liked to call them when he was alone with Steve). They were a team that was part of a subsect of a larger organization, SHIELD, which once was the Strategic Scientific Reserve Steve had been a part of. Steve had accepted their help with minimal suspicion and let them fill him in on all that he’d missed. He didn’t know if he should care that they’d won the War. This could all be a feverish dream, the flash before his eyes just before he would truly expire. He couldn’t know.

PLASM had not made it better, putting him through a rigorous panel of tests, asking him to recall all the details he ever knew of his life. They’d put him in numerous machines and made him do various things like walk through walls and pick up objects (he strangely could do the first only sometimes and could never do the latter). They put living people and spirits in front of him but he could touch neither. Once he had been deemed somewhat explicable, he had been handed over to the Avengers, who’d been tasked with the long term mission of helping him move on, with hopefully no actual avenging.

That no one outside of Tony’s immediate area of about two hundred feet could see him had been a huge relief to Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD and PLASM, who had not wanted a national furore over the appearance of Captain America’s ghost. It had certainly made Steve’s increasingly extensive nightly wanderings easier to a degree, if he went alone, but it hadn’t stopped Tony from running rather exhaustive tests on him all the same.

Steve didn’t know if he wanted to move on. Some days when Steve had ventured out, he’d marveled at the future, the different technology, the different _people_. But he would look back at all he had lost, all the things he couldn’t physically do, the living population who couldn’t even see him unless Tony was present, everything that was familiar and yet so different, and he’d give in to the need to move on. He didn’t really belong.

They’d done the easiest first and visited all the graves of the people he knew whom he had left behind; people of sentimental importance. He had gone to Howard’s grave first, given his anchor to the material in Tony’s chest that had been a part of his shield. He’d visited Dum-Dum’s grave. Dernier’s grave. Jones’ grave. Morita’s grave. Falsworth’s grave. Heck, even Colonel Phillips’s grave. Bucky’s parent’s graves. He’d still visited his parent’s grave and Bucky’s grave even though they had been the ones who had left him behind, but he couldn’t bear to not see Bucky again, even if it had been as part of a granite memorial.

Peggy had been the only remaining person on his little list because she was the only one still alive. Steve had not been surprised to learn of this but he had had a hard time deciding if he’d wanted her to see him like this at all. If he’d wanted to see her like this. In the end, he’d fallen back to the mantra that had been running through his head - he didn’t belong, he didn’t belong - and he’d gone, hoping it would bring peace to the both of them. She had cried and he had wanted to hug her tight, withered and fading as she was and insubstantial as his body was. When it had been time to part ways again, he had not moved on, but her mind and her memories had.

Since then, he’d just stuck by Tony, following along with whatever it was that Tony had to do. They’d gone to New York numerous times, Tony supervising the completion of his tower there. Steve had gone alone to visit Brooklyn on those trips. He had wandered the streets, moving past the people, and tried to find where everything was. The streets were the same, but the details weren’t. It had been like a bad duplication of a painting. And more than the missing visual details, Steve couldn’t _smell_ any of it. He’d stopped wandering the city alone, then. He could take not touching but nothing threw him off more than missing a smell, especially with his senses as enhanced as they had been. From everything to nothing had been more noticeable than he would have thought.

He’d started taking up his time by tagging in on PLASM missions with the team sans Tony, mostly sitting in the Quinjet, taken the team up on Trivia Nights (he could beat Thor, if that was any consolation) for the sake of learning about the new age, learned some biophysics and psychophysiology from Bruce, and then had still spent more time than was probably healthy in Tony’s workshop with Tony.

Tony was technically a consultant for PLASM but despite his grumbling at the title, he had taken the role to heart. They’d eventually moved to the newly opened Stark Tower in New York and Tony had made room for the rest of the team to stay. He had also taken it upon himself to design new gear for Clint and Natasha and Steve was learning quickly about ghosts and psychokinetic energies, particle physics, and robotics just from Tony’s general rambling as he had worked into the night.

Unfortunately, Tony worked _very_ deep into the night and even if Steve didn’t need to sleep, Tony surely did; Tony had become increasingly manic with each passing day that he’d slept badly. On the month anniversary since Steve had appeared as a ghost, and after night after night after night of increasingly numerous hauntings which had resulted in Steve forgoing his wandering of the grounds to actively watching over Tony’s sleep, hoping to drag off the clawing entities before they left physical injuries on Tony, Tony was the one to sit Steve down for a talk.

Steve sat now, amused, while Tony spouted off about vampires and teenage girls. After a full ten minutes of watching the other man gesture increasingly wildly, it was apparent that Tony was actually serious, and Steve has to put up a hand. Surprisingly, Tony stopped talking.

“You need your sleep,” Steve said firmly, lowering his hand. “You haven’t been dealing with this. I’ve seen your photographs from two years ago. Hell, from two months ago. You look terrible and I only met you one month ago.”

Tony snorted. “You flatter me, Cap. Make a guy feel great, you do. But I don’t need to be babied. PLASM can’t do a damn thing about it. What makes you think you can? And I’m working on a defence system so don’t worry about it.” He waved a dismissive hand at Steve.

Steve knew about the defence system, and Steve also knew that Tony had been working on it for almost two years. The protonic energy Tony must use would harm Tony’s person as well given the nature of the hauntings. Steve knew all that, because Tony himself had said it, shown it to him. Steve had never wanted to shake another person as much as he did Tony right then. Tony needed a shaking.

“Let me guard your sleep, Tony. It’s not babying you, it’s _saving your life.”_

“Look, nothing’s been happening since that Vanko thing. You don’t need to do this. I can deal with it.”

Steve really wanted to shake Tony. This must be what Bucky had felt. “It’s because you don’t remember them. You never remember them.”

“Well good. I’d need to be carted off to the crazy house if I had to live through what you describe happens every night. ”

“Of course. I’m completely sane and unaffected by the decomposing, disembodied limbs trying to drag you to hell.”

Tony threw his hands up at Steve. “That’s why I’m telling you to leave it! It’s not like you actually managed to get your hands on them! They just disappear.”

Steve could feel his phantom teeth grinding. “I show up, they disappear. That’s good enough for me.”

“Cap, leave it. I can deal with a few chicken scratches.”

“No, you can’t. Those gouges from Vanko haven’t healed. Your jaw is still bruised. We haven’t even found Vanko’s anchor. What if he comes back? _Let me help you_.”

“ _Why?_ ”

Steve snapped his mouth closed at that. _Why was he doing this?_ Why _was_ he doing this? Because Tony was Howard’s son, his only remaining link to the old life who wasn’t losing their mind? Because it was the right thing to do? Because it was the only meaningful thing he _could_ do? Those were true but they didn’t feel right.

“I want to keep you safe,” Steve said slowly, feeling the words. And it felt _right._

Tony opened and closed his mouth, staring at Steve with wide eyes. “Are you saying you were brought back as a ghost just to ‘ _keep_ me _safe’_?”

Steve didn’t know. He really didn’t. “We haven’t had any luck with anything else, so why not?”

Tony looked away. “I don’t need anyone fighting my nightmares for me.”

And that was it, wasn’t it? The hauntings happened only when Tony had had a nightmare. Nightmares Steve had been accidentally privy to through contact with the anchor. Tony had an entire history before Steve had met him and Steve knew Tony wasn’t proud of it. Steve hesitated but he had to know. He had to know straight from Tony, and not Tony’s subconscious. “Tony, why are you being haunted?”

Tony seemed to shrink. He looked down, hand rising to massage at the light in his chest, the arc reactor. Steve’s anchor.

“What do you know of me, from before my Iron Man gig?” Tony asked, voice flat.

“I had Natasha show me some public records of you. But I don’t know about,” Steve tapped at his own chest to mirror the arc reactor on Tony, “that. How you got it. Why you got it.”

Tony sat in silence for a full minute, hand still rubbing absently along the surface of the arc reactor. The only light from the room was from the small lamp by Tony’s bed on the other side of the room, and Tony’s massaging movement was flashing the blue light of the reactor on and off like a beacon.

“I know it’s strictly not my business,” Steve said cautiously, “but do you think you can tell me about it?”

Steve sat and waited, and as he waited, Tony slowly, haltingly, lowered his hand from the arc reactor and started to recount the tale of his capture in Afghanistan, Obadiah Stane’s betrayal, SHIELD and PLASM’s interference with the subsequent Stane Haunting, his fight with palladium, and his most recent altercation with Ivan Vanko. Tony went straight back to bed as soon as he said his last word, avoiding Steve’s eyes, but Steve sat with him, just in case.

Tony woke the next morning looking lighter and brighter than Steve had ever seen him. He seemed to be pretending that the previous night’s talk hadn’t happened, but from then on, Tony became more open with Steve, more honest, more casual, hiding less behind sarcasm. He started taking Steve out at night to visit the sights of the 21st century, showing him movies and books and music and games.

And every night, since that last night of the first month, Steve would verbally prod Tony to bed, and then either wander the city or watch one of the movies and TV shows now perpetually playing in the media room with another Avenger who was refusing to sleep, try to touch things, become angry that he couldn’t, and reappear by Tony’s side as soon as he felt a tug from his anchor signalling _something_ happening. Steve always checked on Tony for injuries, but he respected Tony’s wishes and refrained from actively hovering over Tony’s bed.

He was developing a routine and all in all, he felt better about his half-existence, especially when he was surrounded by people who dealt with ghosts all year around and never batted an eye at his transparency.

He was still unsure of why he was here, living half a life, and all he could do was _think,_ but maybe he could hang on to his sanity for a while longer yet.


	5. My Growing Tree

Steve is standing in a richly decorated corridor. He studies the dark wooded paneling, the paintings on the wall, the vases on spindle legged tables in the periodic alcoves. The walls were fractured and through the breaks in reality, usual haze of the dreamscape stretches endlessly.

He remembers how he got here. The arc reactor had tugged at him and he had appeared by Tony’s bed in time to see it shine a sickly color. He had reached for it, and had ended up here.

He hears the quick patter of small feet and turns just in time to catch a young boy barreling around a corner and into his arms. Steve looks down and sees Tony’s brown eyes peering up at him through messy brown hair.

“Cap! You’re here! Let me show you what I finished today!”

Steve lets Tony pull him along the corridor by a small but firm grip. Tony must be around seven or eight, Steve thinks. There is still some baby fat around his cheeks. They make numerous turns, too numerous to be practical, and they end up in what looks to be a very small version of adult Tony’s workshop. Small Tony takes him to a small bench, patting the floor at Steve. Steve sits and waits.

“Jarvis’ leg has been hurting him,” Tony begins. He shuffles some papers around and out of nowhere, produces a crude contraption recognizable to Steve as a leg brace bristling with wires. “I had to spend a whole month learning about electromyography but the brace is all done now.” He holds the contraption out to Steve, excited. “I can fix Jarvis’s leg. I just need to calibrate it to Jarvis.”

Steve takes the contraption and gives it an exaggerated once-over, but his admiration for seven-year-old Tony’s heart and accomplishment is genuine. “You’ve done well, Tony,” Steve says.

Tony beams at him. “I need dad to give me better materials and machines. I want to give Jarvis something that looks nice.” Without another word, Tony drags Steve by the hand through another series of winding corridors, ending up in front of a heavy set of wooden doors. Tony hesitates at the door but Steve urges him on. Tony visibly steels himself with all his seven-year-old determination and he pushes open the doors.

They walk in and Steve, through the haze, can make out a large study with two opposing walls of shelves filled with books and blueprints and other paraphernalia. The desk at the centre dominates and Howard is standing over it, plotting something out on a large map spread over the entire desk. Howard looks good for his age; he must be about sixty now and his hair is still mostly brown.

“Dad!” Tony calls out and rushes forward with his contraption held high. “Look what I made! It’s a leg brace to help Jarvis. I fit in pneumatic actuators for this hinge mechanism and—“

“Tony, I’m busy. Go tell your mother,” Howard points a pencil at them without looking up.

Steve is dumbfounded by the curt response.

“But, dad! I need—“

“Maria!” Howard yells. “Get Tony out of here!”

Steve steps forward, anger brewing, but he’s brushed aside by a woman who comes to scoop Tony right up in her arms. Steve watches as Tony clutches the brace to the woman’s—Maria’s—his mother’s back. There is a glow about her, unlike the other figures that had often appeared in Tony’s dreams. She strokes gently on Tony’s hair and Tony buries his face into her neck, tiny shoulders shaking. On her way out, she stops right by Steve.

“He’s always gone, these days,” Maria says, not looking at him. “He’s looking for you. He’ll never find you and he’ll lose Tony along the way.”

Tony snuffles into her shoulder and she shushes him quietly, turning a corner away from Steve. Steve stands in the doorway to Howard’s study, staring after her. He thinks he knows this woman. But maybe it is her mannerisms he knows. This was how Tony acted in those moments he let his guard down, moments Steve has been witnessing more and more.

Steve blinks and suddenly he’s in a bedroom. The décor looks different, almost clinical. There’s a simple wooden wardrobe, a desk covered in books and paper, and a plain, narrow bed with simple white sheets. There is a schoolboy’s uniform hung outside the wardrobe and a single poster on the wall at the foot of the bed. Steve recognizes it as one of his old propaganda posters.

“Cap!” Tony calls out from beneath the sheets. “Tell me a Howling Commando story!”

Steve, not knowing what else to do, moves to sit on the bed. He doesn’t know what Tony will remember of this dream but there are so many things he’s never said out loud to Adult Tony, fearing he’d be shut down in face of the sentiment but maybe here, he can get his thoughts across. He thinks for a moment and decides to go for it. “How about a story about one of the bravest, most caring men I know?”

Tony nods enthusiastically and grins at him. “Who is it? Is it Bucky? Will you tell me about the time you rode your motorcycle right over enemy walls and took out the tanks with your shield? Bucky used a M1941 Johnson, right? He protected you from up high, right? How good was he, really? What did he like about the rifle? Did he ever need—“

Steve laughs and holds up a hand, pushing back the twinge of pain in his heart from the memories of Bucky. Small Tony is no less talkative than Adult Tony. “Bucky is definitely one of the bravest and most caring but I want to tell you about Iron Man.”

Tony’s eyes widen at the name and Steve can’t help but smile at the awe in that expression. It reflects what Steve feels about Tony most days when he thought about all that the man had been through. “I’ve never heard of this Iron Man before,” Tony says and leans eagerly towards Steve. “What did he do?”

Steve hunkers down and recounts the great deeds of Iron Man - the resilient man who saved himself from death, the righteous man who sought accountability for his actions, the generous man who opened his home to his team, the selfless man who spent time with Steve despite his own workload, the heroic man who helped clear the streets of mean spirits.

Before long, Small Tony’s eyes droop, so much like his Adult counterpart, and then his head lolls and he’s fast asleep. Steve brushes away a strand of unruly hair from Tony’s face, smiling. Tony’s earnest inquisition hasn’t changed – the papers may still talk down Tony but Steve doesn’t care.

And it’s not like he can pick up a paper anymore. What did they ever know anyway?


	6. Passing Ships

It was approaching winter and this was the third call-out for a Class Seven Other Dimensional Entity this month, approximately three more than the usual number of Class Seven cases. The team had started to get a little tired of constantly hearing Fury’s call-out sirens. After a sloppy mission which had resulted in a flattened art museum for only a Class Five haunting, Fury had decided to hand off the lower class paranormal disturbances to the smaller support teams of PLASM and reserved the Avengers for city-levelling paranormal activity.

Tony had started joining in on active missions as Iron Man, more for the team’s sake - so Steve could be visible to them - than for field observation for the equipment he was developing. He’d spent the past three weeks trying to refine a freeform magnetic beam redirector. That Class Five had dodged linear beams with ease and if he had to see Steve’s face at the destruction of those supposedly priceless pieces of art again, he’d have to take up painting himself just to replicate them for Steve’s artistically inclined soul. As it was, he would settle on trying to prevent it from happening ever again, hence the beam redirectors. He’d only managed a wide angle curve of their proton beam weaponry but he knew he could make it do better if he could only figure out a mechanism to extend and shape the magnetic fields into something like nets.

After a small fire and an almost literal heart attack (he needed to improve the shield on the arc reactor; he shouldn’t have forgotten, yet he had), he had gone back to the drawing board. Steve had laughed at his singed eyebrows but Tony could see the worry in those translucent eyes of his. Tony had refused to let it warm his poor heart but it had happened anyway. He knew Steve was trying to not smother him in protection like he initially had with the sleeping thing but Tony appreciated it, especially since the hauntings seem to have stopped altogether.

They’d spent their weekends and nights cycling between catching Steve up to 21st century culture and history, and doing whatever it was that Steve wanted to do. Steve was still unsure of what it was he had stayed for, which was puzzling to all the paranormal experts they’d consulted but they’d kept trying. Tony knew Steve wasn’t dealing well with being a fully ethereal ghost and he’d tried to confine his support to providing Steve with non-physical means of exposure to the world which mostly equated to entertainment media and sightseeing. From the increasing number of smiles on Steve’s face, Tony thought he was at least doing something helpful, even if it wasn’t to actively help move Steve on, and even if he fell asleep on the couch every other night, not even halfway through whatever it was they’d been watching.

His investigation of Certainty Three had fallen to the wayside in the face of Steve’s _Steveness_. He was getting to know this man outside of Howard’s influence and he wanted more. And he hated that he wanted more. Steve should come first; Steve needed to move on to his next life.

It definitely didn’t brighten Tony’s mood when giant mascots possessed by other dimensional entities chose another weekend to throw slime in his face. The weekend was also the only time he had to tinker to his heart’s content and he absolutely refused to fall into his old habits of missing Stark Industries work in the weekdays and disappointing Pepper.

Tony rolled out of the way of a giant glob of slime thrown at him and blasted forward to circle the head of the Colonel. Ectoplasm. Slime. He hated slime. Decontamination and neutralization was a horrible experience; Anti-Slime Slime smelled terrible.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Clint’s voice came through the comms, “but I think I’m off fried chicken. Forever.” There was a boom and an explosion of pink light at Colonel Sanders’ feet, where the giant two-storey chicken was circling. The chicken fell over with a crash, flattening a small kebab stand, but rolled to its feet in the next moment with a deafening squawk. Tony added another item to his List of Compensations.

Giant Colonel Sanders let out a roar and swiped a large hand at Tony just as Tony flew in to fire a few proton shots at the Colonel’s eyes.

“A million turkeys died in their sleep to manifest this,” Tony said. “And it all ended up in a giant chicken.” He banked hard to the left to dodge the swipe and put a good fifty meters between himself at the Colonel, studying the field. “Distraction didn’t distract enough, Clint. Got anything else, Cap?”

“Ronald McDonald?” Steve’s voice came through the comms from the Quinjet.

Tony almost bit his tongue, caught between laughing and matching the retort, and he dropped a few feet through the air.

“Wow, Cap. I’d’ve expected that from Tony,” Natasha said. “Clint and I are in position to capture the chicken again. Clint, on my mark.”

Through his cameras, Tony saw her shoot a dozen stingers onto the chicken then dash away as it roared in what was probably pain. Three of Clint’s arrows flew over the chicken and four arcs of light connected to the stingers from four arrows embedded around the chicken. The chicken squawked again and fell heavily to the ground under the proton streams. His new gear was working like a charm. Good, because the old proton packs may have worked for the original Ghostbusters but they were ghastly and impractical for people like Natasha and Clint.

“Here, Colonel!” Thor called over the rumbling from the brewing clouds.

Tony spun mid-air and took his mark. Thor summoned his lightning onto the Colonel and, while the Colonel was still dazed, Tony body-slammed into the Colonel’s head just as Thor swung his hammer into the Colonel’s chin in a powerful arc.

Thor continued to fly after the Colonel, knocking him away from the giant chicken, swinging at its head, and breaking its glasses. The Colonel refused to fall but was at least moving further away from its partner in crime, stirring up clouds of dust with its massive feet.

As the dust settled, the entire chicken was gone, Trapped, and Tony heard Clint let out a whoop.

“Good work, team,” Steve’s voice came over the comms. “Thor needs help with the Colonel. They’re on west 45th now, coming up on Bryant Park, and the evacuation isn’t going as smoothly there as it did here.”

Tony cursed out loud then swooped down to take Clint and Natasha with him to the other giant possessed mascot they had to take care of.

“We might have to bring out the Big Guy for this,” Bruce said, uncertain but determined.

“Nay!” Thor’s voice came through the comms. “Do not strain yourself, good Doctor. This foe is on his last legs and I’m certain we’ll capture it oomph—“

Thor was cut off by the sound of something heavy slamming into the pavement and then the noise of something large deposited into an even larger pile of dry leaves.

“Thor!”

“Sorry,” Tony said quickly, and accelerated towards where Thor had been. Natasha and Clint, wrapped in each of his arms, would be able to handle the G forces.

“I am unharmed!” Thor’s voice came through the comms again, crackling a little, and Tony heard a breath of relief released from all of them. “His fists are fast for his size. It seems the loss of his steed has angered him.”

“That chicken wouldn’t be for riding,” Bruce commented.

Tony had a quip at the tip of his tongue but it wouldn’t come out. He shook his head and focused on reaching Thor. He flew through the flattened tunnel of trees and deposited Clint and Natasha at the edge of the lawn where Colonel Sanders in his four-storey glory was roaring to the skies. His filters cut out the noise but his sensors also showed at least three hundred recording cameras pointed at them from the surrounding buildings. Tony sighed and fired off a perimeter of smoke flares. No ogling hopefully means that they would evacuate. The camera count only dropped to half and Tony sighed again.

“Bruce, can you hurry the evac along? I don’t want to have to deal with a ‘Fried Chicken Is A Menace’ on the front page of the Bugle tomorrow.”

“It’ll happen anyway,” Bruce said, equally exasperated, but Tony saw him message the PLASM support teams through the Quinjet comms.

Tony turned his attention back to where Thor, Clint, and Natasha were trying to draw the Colonel away from the Library. The Colonel roared and jumped into the air and landed with an almighty thud. A large boom resounded through the park and a crack streaked up the walls of the Library.

“Big Guns?” Natasha asked, ever so slightly out of breath.

“I vote Big Guns,” Clint said immediately.

“Aye,” Thor agreed. “It seems we must resort to the most violent.”

“I also vote Big Guns,” Bruce said.

“Big Guns,” Steve confirmed. “We’ll blast from the east. Thor, keep him off the Library and tip him west. Hawkeye, a trip stream and capture streams. Widow, set the Trap at the centre of the lawn, where the thick of the torso would be. Tony, explosives on the torso. Thor, lightning to follow. Clear?”

A chorus of _aye aye_ s rang through the comms at their Captain’s order and they ranged out around the Colonel into position.

Tony readied his micromissile array and waited.

Bruce brought the Quinjet to a hover above the Library and the Colonel turned its massive head toward the noise of the engines. An angry frown formed on its burnt and pitted face and it took one step forward with a hand reaching for the jet.

“Firing,” Bruce said, voice calm.

It all took seven seconds and it was textbook.

A thick proton stream fired from the belly mounted canon and hit the Colonel right in its white-shirted chest. Thor, heedless of the massive proton beam, moved in to swing his hammer right into the Colonel’s forehead. The Colonel staggered back one step, tripping on the trip stream Clint had set up, and fell onto its back with a great boom. Clint’s arrows rained in an outline along the Colonel’s body and as the last arrow fell, the pink capture streams formed between them and the arrows and stings already embedded in its body. Tony let loose his missiles and, along with a few remaining arrows of Clint’s and a dozen strikes of lightning in rapid succession, the Colonel’s chest exploded right on top of the Trap.

“Activating Trap,” Natasha said.

A gust blew up around the Trap and slowly, the Class Seven entity possessing the fried chicken mascot was drawn into it.

Through his cameras, Tony saw the Trap lift off the ground and he made a split second decision and flew straight through the maelstrom to pin the Trap to the ruined lawn. He missed the Trap entirely, hitting the lawn a foot from it instead. Out of sheer dumb luck, his flailing arms managed to grab onto the Trap before it flew off. He thought he heard Steve yell at him over the comms but he held down tighter on the Trap, thrusters pinning him to the ground, the energies whirling around him, and he waited the storm out.

When the Trap finally closed, Tony let his arms drop to his sides with a thump and looked up at the landing Quinjet. He shoved the Trap off of him and stood to shake the grass off the suit. His poor suit - newly machined and already filthy. Bruce had made his way over to inspect the Trap with the Energy Meter as usual. Tony was about to head to the Quinjet to find Steve when Bruce stood abruptly from his inspection.

“Tony, check this?” Bruce held the Meter up to Tony.

Tony stared at it then took it. He pulled out a cord from his gauntlet and plugged it into the Meter, then plugged the Meter into the port in the Trap, setting it to a broad detection of ethereal energies. His own scans and the Meter came back with zero, no equipment malfunction as far as he could tell. Tony looked up at Bruce and tilted his head in question. Bruce shrugged. The trap was empty.

“It might’ve skipped dimension at the last minute?” Bruce guessed. “These O.D. Traps work - the other one is in its Trap. We might need to take this one to Richards, just to be sure.”

The team had gathered around them at this point and Tony held up the Meter as explanation. Natasha frowned and bent down to examine the Trap. She was the one who dealt with them more than any of the rest of them.

Clint kicked the Trap and earned a glare from Natasha. “Weird,” Clint said. “But by ‘we’, Bruce means you, Stark. No one here wants to deal with Richards’ lot.” He looked around at all of them. “Okay I take it all back. I want fried chicken. Let’s go to that place just opened on 36th and 8th.”

“We snack on our victory!” Thor said, raising Mjolnir. “I will race you there, Barton?” He smiled widely and swung his hammer over his head. “I shall be generous and give you ten seconds head start!”

Clint yelped and turned to run at the Quinjet, tugging Bruce and Natasha along by the arms.

“See you back at the Tower?” Natasha called back to Tony and Steve. “We’ll order for you?”

Tony nodded and waved them on, watching as the jet streaked off with Thor chasing it through the air. He turned to Steve, who had been unusually quiet through that entire exchange. Steve had been using that tactical mind of his on their missions more and more lately. Today was the fifth time he’d taken command and they had worked like a well lubricated joint. There was no reason for him to be so reserved. “What’s up, buttercup?”

Steve was staring down at the Trap, and he looked up to Tony with a frown at Tony’s prompt. “That was dangerous,” he said simply.

Tony didn’t know how to answer that. He released the catches for the helmet and he pulled it off, shaking his hair out. He turned to Steve and raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it always? Pity this one’s gone, though,” he nudged the Trap with a clang of his armored foot, “I just wanted to keep one of them as leverage for Fury to authorize a full Containment Unit for the Tower. I refuse to believe those things are magic.”

Steve shook his head at Tony, and indicated the Trap with the tip of his own boot. “You slammed into the ground, hard. And you were too close to the Trap’s opening. It could’ve hurt you.”

“I’m _armored_ ,” Tony said, incredulous. “My sound and camera filters have filters. Hermetically sealed and all that jazz.” He turned to Steve and thumped at his own chest, right over the arc reactor. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I promise.”

Steve looked unconvinced and he reached up to press at Tony’s chest in response to the thump. “I don’t want to lose anyone on my—“

Tony gasped and squeezed his eyes shut. There was a warm feeling flooding his body, emanating from his chest, the arc reactor. As he stood, he felt a tightening, like a small pressure there and it raced long his veins in a wave of heat. His eyes shot open and he stared down at his chest, only to see Steve’s hand disappearing right through the chestplate, straight into Tony’s body underneath, into his arc reactor.

Steve was doing this?

Tony looked up and saw Steve staring back at him, wide-eyed. Steve immediately withdrew his hand and took a hasty step back.

“I’m sorry I—“

“Did you feel that too—“

Tony stared at Steve, the dust from the earlier fight yet to settle around them. “You can touch the arc reactor?” Tony began again, slowly.

Steve’s cheeks reddened, actually reddened, and he looked away. “I’m sorry. It’s how I’ve been entering your dreams, I think. The light always changes after every haunting and I always had to make sure.

Well. That needed further investigating.

“I’m sorry,” Steve added again. “I was out of line, and seeing your dreams—“

“Wait,” Tony interrupted, brain catching up, “that was actually you there? And not my brain adjusting to the times?”

Steve nodded, cheeks still red. “I’m sorry.”

Tony waved it away. He might have been angry (very angry) once upon a time, but now he didn’t think he could be anymore. He remembered those dreams, those nightmares – they’d shown Steve what he himself could never put to words, things he could never have even brought up to Steve in the first place. Tony knew he was a coward in that respect so he was grateful for them, in retrospect; Steve had seen it all, and hadn’t walked away.

What had his mother used to say? _Dreams are windows into the soul._ If he had to be poetic, then Steve had seen the essence of his _soul_ and he hadn’t walked away. Hell, hadn’t there been the one dream where Steve told his younger self about how great Iron Man was? He needed to have a chat with Steve about subliminal messaging but it had been nice at the time. Of course, it could all have been out of necessity for being anchored to Tony but Tony thought they’d become friends at the very least.

He considered Steve a good friend. He trusted Steve. Certainty Three and Howard be damned.

Tony made a decision and released the back of the suit, stepping out and around to face Steve in his undersuit. He circled a finger at the arc reactor and nodded at Steve. “Try it now.”

Steve hesitated, eyes flicking between Tony’s face and the arc reactor, but he stepped toward Tony again, reaching out a hand. Tony kept his eyes down and watched as Steve’s gloved fingers slowly sunk into the surface of the arc reactor. Only when Steve’s fingers were at the second knuckle, fingertips level with the vibranium core, did Tony feel the heat flare in his chest again.

He gasped and almost fell to his knees. It was wholesome, like being filled in all his empty spaces, but it was unlike anything Tony had ever felt. It was like being freed to fly and being wrapped in warm arms at the same time. It was like hearing the helicopters fly to him over the sand dunes of the desert. Like Rhodey closing his arms around his burnt and battered form. Like sitting back into his car with Pepper at his side, Happy taking him where ever he wanted to go. Like his mother’s hugs, his father’s goddamn approval of his entire being. He wanted more. _Steve_ was the one doing this to him and that thought shot an unexpected wave of heat straight to his groin. The feeling disappeared as soon as he thought it and he opened his eyes.

“That was the vibranium core,” Tony mused out loud through his breathlessness. “I’ve never heard of any ghosts reacting with their anchor like that but most anchors aren’t objects buried in people’s bodies. I’ll chat with Bruce. Don’t worry about it.” He felt invigorated, like the past few weeks of general fatigue had just rolled off his shoulders. Even his eyesight was less blurry and no longer bright around the edges. He ignored the tightness of a certain part of his anatomy though. Thank his foresight for the cup.

Steve continued to look unconvinced, guilt now dominating his features. Tony sighed and rubbed at his forehead.

“I never really thanked you properly for your help with the sleeping thing,” Tony said, aiming for cheer and nonchalance. “So, uh, thanks. For having to literally fight off my past. Keeping me alive. And don’t worry about the accidental dream adventures.” He gestured vaguely at the arc reactor. “I should thank _you_ for still sticking around after the one with the champagne and Camelot. I forgive you but I don’t blame you in the first place so take what you will.”

“Thank you,” Steve said after a moment. “I’m just glad you’re sleeping well again. And alive.” He paused, a twinkle appearing in his eye, a corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. “I figured you for a fantasy buff. It was fun.”

Tony snorted. “Next time just ask, we can cook up a nice adventure. I’ll be happy to let you inside me again.”

They stood in silence for a few seconds. Tony kept his face straight.

Steve sighed. “Your innuendos always ruin a good moment.”

“Tony Stark, at your service,” Tony parroted.

“You’re not funny.”

“Am too.”

“You _are_ a two year old sometimes.”

“Says you, old man.”

Steve tried to contort his face into something stereotypically old and Tony burst out laughing, heedless of the curious glances from the PLASM support teams that had swarmed in for clean-up. Tony hadn’t let out a good hearty laugh for weeks and weeks and his stomach almost ached at the uncontrollable tremors that ran through him. Steve laughed with him and it didn’t matter whether or not Steve was corporeal in these moments.

“Just promise me,” Steve added quietly, after their laughter died down, “that you’ll keep yourself safe.”

And Tony didn’t even hesitate to make that promise.


	7. Ghosts of Future Past

Steve is clutching at his shield and a black-gloved fist is flying at his face. He knocks it aside and redirects the follow-through kick with his other arm. He pulls back the shield and swings the edge up at the torso before him. On the upswing, Steve finally looks up to see the Red Skull standing before him.

This is Steve’s memory. But in Tony’s dream?

He turns with the shield’s momentum and puts a few feet between himself and the Skull in the Valkyrie’s bridge.

The Skull is holding the Cube and its blue glow saturates the stark interior around them. “You will never understand Power, Captain,” the Skull drawls. “You are the man with a plan but you cannot see beyond your small mind. You lack the will to execute and I will see it be the end of you.”

Steve draws back the shield for a throw and the Skull raises the Cube up high. The light of the cosmos washes through the space around them and Steve feels his feet freeze as if caught in thick mud. He looks down and sees ice encasing him up to his ankles. It rises quickly and in moments, Steve is frozen from the waist down. He tries to chip at it with the shield but it was gone from his arm. The ice rises to his chin, over his mouth, his nose, his eyes, and then he’s fully encased, unable to even draw in a panicked breath.

From his ice coffin, he sees the Skull drop the Cube and vanish. His shield is by the Cube and he strains against the ice to get at it. They’re still flying towards America and he needs to get the plane away. Now.

His muscles are tearing as he pulls and shakes against the solid grip of the cold but he can’t move. The ice in contact with him melts at his exertion but he still can’t get enough leverage to break through.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees land approaching. It isn’t right. He knows he put the plane into the ice. He’d knocked the Cube from the Skull with his shield. He went down with the plane. He _knows_ this, but here, the land is approaching and approaching fast. And it’s real, here and now.

He’s too late.

The bombers are going to unleash their payload on the entire eastern sea board. Steve is going to fail. Steve is going to die for nothing.

He’s too late.

All the men and women counting on him for their lives - he’s too late to save them all.

He closes his eyes.

This is _his_ nightmare.

He feels a tug. “Steve.”

Steve’s eyes snap open in time to see a figure rise from his shield. Peggy, beautiful and whole, rushes toward him and he’s confused but relieved. Peggy can help him. Peggy can save them. He tries to indicate the flight controls, the bombers on board, but Peggy only stands and studies him with a tilted head.

“Let me have you?”

Steve shakes his head, or tries to, confusion rising. What does Peggy mean?

“Is this better, then? Is this what you prefer now?”

Peggy’s figure morphs to that of Tony’s, dirty in his slacks and sleeveless workshop shirt.

Tony tilts his head like Peggy had, expression unnatural in its childish inquiry, eyes flashing an unnatural green. “If you let me have you, I will let you out to save them. You can die for something good. Something great. Let me have you?”

Steve shakes his head again, confusion growing. He tries to tell Tony to go to the controls, to turn the plane around, and Tony’s expression twists into something livid and dark. Something he’d never seen on Tony’s face before.

Steve feels himself fading out into the numbness of the cold. The thing that is wearing Tony’s face beats on the ice over Steve’s face, desperation in every pounding of his fists.

“Let me have you, let me take you, _let me have you, or I will take—_ ”

The light and darkness cycle in flashes above him.

Steve fades into the cold.


	8. Stepping Stones

Steve sat by the window in Tony’s bedroom and watched the snow flurries outside the glass.

The Avengers had been called out for a Class Six Stampede earlier in the day. Steve was no stranger to animals in the street but this had been more disruptive than anything he had ever seen. Perhaps mostly because the animals were of the zoo variety and lion ghosts leaping into stores had not been met with much enthusiasm.

When they’d finally Trapped the last animal at sundown, it had started to snow. The team had had a happy and rowdy dinner but Steve had stepped out to the Iron Man landing pad halfway to watch over the whitening city. Steve may be dead and he couldn’t eat, but he could still admire the scenery. He just wished he could pick up a pencil to capture it.

After they’d sent Thor off to Jane for the holidays, Tony had stayed out with Steve at the edge of the landing pad and Steve had shared his desire to draw. Tony had immediately started designing out loud a vibranium stylus. If Steve could touch the vibranium in Tony’s chest, and only in Tony’s chest, he could touch a piece extended from his chest, right? Steve had stood and let Tony wave his hands around, trying to theorize on anchors, Steve’s lack of P.K.E., the significance of hauntings in general, and the feasibility of him synthesizing a substantial amount of vibranium. Steve hoped he wouldn’t need to use a stylus anchored literally to Tony’s heart just to doodle but he appreciated the sentiment all the same. He looked over the cityscape and let Tony ramble on beside him.

Having no feeling for temperature, Steve hadn’t realized just how cold it had been, especially at their altitude in the Tower. It was only after Tony had sneezed three times in succession that Steve had realized the redness of Tony’s cheeks and nose, and how he had been shivering in his single layer of clothing. Feeling like a heel, he’d urged Tony inside against all protests of being fine. He couldn’t even have given Tony his coat because he didn’t wear a coat, and even if he did, it would have fallen through Tony and not done a damn thing for the cold anyway.

A particularly loud splash made him turn towards the sliver of light below the door to the bathroom where Tony was taking a long bath. Steve thought Tony spoke but the voice didn’t sound alarming so Steve didn’t question Tony’s safety. He tugged his mind away from the bath and bathrooms. It was a reminder that he couldn’t interact with the world in any meaningful manner anymore. He can absorb all the information he wants but he couldn’t _use_ it. He didn’t have a _body._ He couldn’t _touch_.

And he _really wanted to_. Here and now. Despite himself, he had grown attached to this time. Even if this was a fevered dream as he froze to death in the Valkyrie, he wanted to live it while he could. He wanted to watch creations come alive at Tony’s fingertips. He wanted to see Thor reunited with his estranged brother. He wanted to see Clint fulfil his dream of shooting an apple from Nick Fury’s head. He wanted to help Bruce with managing the Hulk. He wanted to keep seeing Natasha being comfortable enough around them all to tend to Pepper’s pot plant, Joseph.

He was trying to figure out what he could do for another year of this non-life when the bathroom door finally opened to admit Tony into the bedroom.

“About time,” Steve said, turning around. “I thought you’d—“

His jaw refused the movement required to complete his sentence because this was the most undressed Steve had ever seen of Tony, and he’d watched the man sleep before.

Tony yelped, a hand flying to cover the arc reactor, and backed into the bathroom, closing the door with a bang.

“Steve!” Tony’s muffled voice came through the door. “Warn a guy!”

“I’m in my usual spot!” Steve yelled back, feeling a beat in his chest. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. You’d never miss watching The Matrix or planning a party. And it’s not like I haven’t seen a naked man before.” He had been in the army and Tony of all people should definitely know that.

There was a choking sound from the bathroom and Steve took a few hurried steps toward the door in alarm. Did Tony trip? He hadn’t exactly been dry when he came out in just a short towel—

“Holy shit, Steve! _Warn a guy_!”

Steve sighed. “Okay,” he called through the door. “I’ll wait outside the room.”

He stepped through the bedroom door and sat on the ground with his back to the door. He heard the bathroom door open again and tried to not focus on the sounds of Tony getting dressed.

Tony had been tired lately but physically, he looked to be in good health. Steve was aware that Tony had a well-toned physique, having also watched him train hard in the gym, but being peripherally aware and having a naked Tony with only a short towel wrapped low on his hips appear before him were two entirely different things.

He felt his heart pound again at the memory of a moment ago, at the sight of the tan of Tony’s skin, and the small dips of bone and muscle at his hip. He raised a hand to his chest and pressed hard but couldn’t feel anything there. Phantom physiology, Bruce had called it, not unlike living people feeling their missing limbs.

He closed his eyes and this time, he saw the red of Tony’s cheeks as they stood looking at the snow, and the quirk of Tony’s smile. The way he laughed as he spun through the air in the Iron Man armor.

Steve opened his eyes and blinked.

This was not a productive line of thought. Had anything like this even happened before between a ghost and a man? Maybe he could ask Natasha to dig the archives—

The door opened behind him without warning and Steve jumped to his feet to see Tony squinting at him through the low light. Tony had put on a dark shirt, the material masking the glow of the arc reactor, and his sleep pants. He stepped back and swept an arm at the room, and Steve moved past Tony quickly, making his way to his usual spot by the windows.

When he turned around, Tony was standing in the middle of the room, hand rubbing at the back of his head with an unreadable expression on his face.

“About that,” Tony began.

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” Steve said quickly.

Tony’s head snapped up, eyes wide in panic.

Steve hadn’t seen Tony bare-chested before, front on, sure. When they’d conducted their little experiments to check Steve’s anchor, Tony had always turned his back to change the arc reactor in and out. But Tony looked exactly as Steve had imagined he would look, and Steve had seen similar injuries before. He could have pieced together the state of Tony’s chest by the stories Tony told alone. It was a part of Tony, Tony’s turning point in life. The arc reactor was the thing that kept Tony alive if not exactly perfectly healthy - Steve’s _anchor_ to this new time - and Steve had never really dwelled on physical appearances anyway. He’d never thought Tony would be conscious of it either.

“Tony,” Steve said firmly. “I knew exactly how your chest would have looked, with the scarring, and now I do know how it looks. Nothing more.” With that, he sat down and pointedly looked between Tony and the bed.

Tony stood still for several silent moments then huffed in amusement and made to climb into his bed. “Virtuous son of a bitch,” he muttered. He rolled around pulling the blankets and covers to and fro before shoving the pillows behind his back to settle on as he looked at Steve.

Tony twiddled his thumbs.

“Okay, no, we’re not doing this,” Tony said in a burst. Steve continued to watch as Tony rolled to the side and shoved all his pillows away to back down on the far side of the bed. Tony tugged around on the blankets again and then gave an imperious pat to the newly vacated side of the bed. “You, lie here. Get out of that armchair. I’m starting to feel psychoanalyzed. We’re equals and I’m not leaving the bed, so you’re getting in.”

Steve blinked at Tony then slowly moved to sit on the bed, drawing his legs up, and leaned back against the headboard. He looked sideways at Tony. Was this normal?

“There,” Tony said. “Now we’re equals. This is normal.” He squinted at Steve. “Friends do this kind of thing.”

“If you say so,” Steve said.

Tony nodded vigorously.

They sat in companionable silence before Tony spoke again. “Answer me this. What would you do if you were solid? If, in the New Year, the Universe decided that you being ethereal was a crime to humanity and snapped its fingers and made you corporeal, visible to all?”

That startled a laughter out of Steve. It was a little different to their usual vein of talks but this was exactly what he had just been dwelling on. And Steve found that he didn’t mind thinking about the ‘what ifs’ like this, with Tony.

He thought for a moment, arranging his priorities to something more suitable for a talk between friends. “Challenge you all to dodge ball first.” Because it had looked fun when he’d watched the team play.

Tony grinned at him. “Do I get to wear the suit?”

Steve grinned back and shook his head. “Nope,” he said, popping the P. “Everyone needs to get at least one bruise.”

Tony snickered but his smile only widened. “What else?”

Steve paused. “I want to feel like a part of this world again,” he said. “Get changed out of this costume and go somewhere crowded. Be with the people.”

Tony tipped his head at Steve, eyes glinting. “Clubbing?”

Steve snorted. He’d seen those in his nightly wanderings and they didn’t look very appealing. He shook his head. “No,” he said, “I’d want to go somewhere lively, spend time with people I care about. I’d want to visit Coney Island again.” He glanced over at Tony, who was gazing out the window, eyes unfocused but nodding at Steve’s words. “We could go there, go on all the rides.” And he could picture himself walking on the boardwalk, Tony dragging him along through the crowds. “I want to try eating cotton candy.” He remembered the sweetness, the way it melts, how he and Bucky had shared a small ball of it, fighting over who gets to hold it and laughing when they’d kept walking into people. “I can show you up at the games, win and rub it in your face.” And he pictured winning a trinket, presenting it to Tony, Tony smiling and—

Tony laughed out loud, a hand thumping the bed between them. “We’ll see about that, Captain Arrogant.”

Steve cleared his throat and dragged his thoughts away from the increasingly inappropriate daydreams that were flashing through his mind. “What about you?” he said, waving a hand at Tony. “What would you do?” Wait. That didn’t come out right—

“Me?” Tony asked, then continued before Steve could clarify his meaning. “Thor and Natasha would want to spar with you so I’d have to fight them for your time but I think - I want to take you flying.” Tony prodded at the sheets on his lap. “You haven’t flown with the Iron Man until you’ve felt the wind on your face.” He glanced sideways at Steve. “Riding me like a sky pony like you’ve been doing doesn’t count and we can never let that happen again if the rest of the world and the media can all see you.”

Steve laughed at that and Tony shrugged with a smile.

“Hey, you asked,” Tony said.

Steve smiled back, and they spent the rest of the evening thinking up increasingly ridiculous activities to do.

That night when Tony slept, Steve stayed in bed with him and watched the glow of the light in Tony’s chest, the glow of Tony’s heart. 


	9. Sweet Dreams

Tony looks as he does now: his hair is short and slightly waved and spiked over his forehead, a strand occasionally falling into his eyes; there is a little bit of silver at his temples; his goatee is trimmed and full; there are laugh lines at the corners of his eyes that Steve secretly adores; and there’s an arc reactor glowing in his chest which Steve can feel a pull from. Tony’s eyes are bright and there’s none of the tired lines that dominated his face in his waking hours.

“Hi, Steve,” Tony says brightly.

Steve, aware that he’d accidentally entered a dream again, plays it by ear. “Hi.”

They are in Tony’s bedroom in Stark Tower. The world outside the window is white, bright, and featureless but the inside is exactly the same as Steve had just left it. Tony walks around and examines the room, picking and prodding at all of his various scattered possessions. He stops by the lovely unnamed sculpture by Wejchert and fingers the corners.

“Wow,” Tony says under his breath, “I would have thought that my dreams would erase Pepper’s terrible taste in art.”

This is different. “What?” Steve asks, thrown.

Tony twirls around on his heels and saunters toward Steve. He stops a step before Steve and smiles, eyes crinkling.

“Lucid dreaming, Cap,” Tony says. He pokes at Steve’s chest. Steve sways back at even the small amount of force behind that gesture and Tony laughs, looking at his own finger. He looks up at Steve again, excited. “I was going to let you test it out after a little more practice on my end but it looks like everything’s working. This is a dream, right? I’m lucid and in control?”

“Or I would tell you what you want to hear because you’re dreaming that you’re lucid dreaming?” Steve suggests, still thrown by this turn of events.

Tony taps at his chin then clicks his fingers, and suddenly they’re standing in a rowdy wet market, probably somewhere in Southeast Asia – Steve doesn’t know it.

“Good enough for me,” Tony says, clicking his fingers again, and they end up back in Tony’s room, this time without the sculpture. Tony nods at the space and turns back to Steve, expression serious. “I can’t do this long. I really have been practicing, but it’s still hard to concentrate so let’s make this quick.”

Steve’s mind freezes as Tony takes that last step between them and wraps his arms around Steve’s shoulders.

“I know you miss physical contact the most,” Tony says by Steve’s ear, his breath brushing warm against the short hairs there. “You better appreciate this because I’m not usually a hugging sort of guy.”

Steve, speechless, slowly lifts his arms to wrap around Tony’s shoulders, Tony’s _warm_ shoulders, and then he finally lets himself sink into the hug, arms tightening around Tony, face burying into Tony’s soft hair. He has almost forgotten the feeling of holding another body in his arms and now he holds onto Tony tightly. He stands and feels the steady beat of Tony’s heart underneath his hands, the soft tickle of Tony’s hair at his nose, the sweet smell of Tony’s shampoo and the musky scent of his skin, the steady rise and fall of Tony’s chest as they breathe in tandem.

It’s several moments before they part and Tony is the first to let go, Steve reluctantly withdrawing his arms. When Tony reaches up to brush at Steve’s cheeks with his thumbs, Steve realizes his eyes are stinging.

Steve pulls back and swipes a hand over his face, rubbing away the wetness. “Sorry.”

“Hey now, don’t be,” Tony says gently. “I’d probably move on from being a ghost immediately if I found out I couldn’t have sex until I did.” Tony clears his throat and looks away, cheeks pink. “Which, uh. Yeah. Don’t be sorry.”

Steve smiles at that. This is just like Tony. Except the blushing - but this is a dream so Steve is going to ignore it out of politeness. And ignore it even more because he wants to feel the heat of the blush beneath his palm, which he thinks might be just a little bit too far even for a dream. “Crushing the moment with sex jokes again?”

“I’m not the only one with sex on mind at all times, Captain Fondue.”

Steve laughs out loud and shakes his head. He nudges Tony to sit on the bed and then joins him. He could always touch, but he never _felt_ it. Now, he runs his hands over the soft sheets, pressing against the firmness of the mattress and feeling it depress against the pressure. “It was Howard, alright? I thought he was a bit of a womanizer.” He looks at Tony and almost wants to kick himself for having had mistaken this man for Howard all those months ago. It’s not just in how different the two men look, but Tony also carries himself differently, thinks differently, acts differently, and in the end Steve just knows Tony better than he ever knew Howard. “I _am_ sorry for touching the arc reactor. It tugged and I came and it was glowing funny.”

Tony coughs and looks away. “I did say any time, right?” He looks back at Steve, curiosity in his eyes.  “How was it ‘glowing funny’? JARVIS has been monitoring it ever since you mentioned it the last time and he hasn’t spotted anything out of the ordinary. Not with his sensors anyway.”

“It was kind of… not blue?” Steve looks down at the blue light. “More like yellow or green. And I reached for it and ended up here.”

Tony looks down and pats at the blue glow of the arc reactor. “I’ll keep an eye out on it.” He prods Steve’s knee and Steve tries hard to keep his hands away from the warmth radiating from Tony. “How about that list we made at the end of last year, huh? I know it’s not the same, but I can try to take you through some of those here. It’s what I’ve been practising for. Surfing with a dog? I can do ocean and fluid physics in my sleep.”

And this is how Steve is sure that he’s glad that he had stayed even as a ghost, that he got to meet this man. Steve nods and Tony grins smugly, and Tony keeps grinning smugly until he falls off a wave off the coast of Australia and wakes up to the sound of laughter.


	10. The Step I Missed

 It was the day before Valentine’s Day and the weather had finally taken a turn for the good. PLASM had been receiving increasingly frantic calls about ‘inappropriate behavior’ out in broad daylight and the Avengers have once again been called out for a Slime containment mission.

The New Year had rolled over like a tidal wave for Tony. There had been constant call-outs for Class Five and lower hauntings on New Year’s Eve and the PLASM support teams had been dispatched for those. After New Year’s Day however, the higher class paranormal events had risen with vigor. It was cutting into Tony’s time and he could feel himself being worn down, torn between PLASM and his company, and unwilling to give up either. As a consultant, he could have refused the call-outs, but it had never felt right to do so.

Pepper had been giving him less and less work, throwing him worried looks whenever he’d turned up at her office. JARVIS had him scanned daily but outside of his increasing grumpiness and clumsy-handed work, he was as healthy as anyone could be with a cluster of shrapnel housed snugly in his chest. He’d tried to sleep it off and had DUM-E and U make him smoothies every day to boost his nutrient intake. Just like the good ol’ days where he’d been dying via palladium reaction products.

And now, more slime.

Tony circled the eighty foot red blob currently oozing in the shadow of Barclays Center. It was reported to have been throwing 'Love Slime’ at everyone and everything. Anyone in contact with the slime had made for the nearest person and…. The reactions ranged from uncontrollable sobbing to full blown sex, depending on how the relationship between the people. Even if the increased love in the air before Valentine’s Day had always bred some interesting entity, it had usually been small scale, never like this. Bruce had stayed back at the Tower; he hadn’t wanted risk coming into contact with the slime and Hulking out involuntarily. And because of the mass of the entity, which Tony and the team have just been calling ‘blob’ for convenience, it’d been rolling right over the capture streams.

Tony buzzed another circle around the blob and it groaned at him. Facing its leading edge, he fired off a proton shot at it. It wriggled and shot a wad of red slime at him. He dodged it and shot its back. The blob wobbled and gurgled but continued to attempt a road crossing. Tony watched as one of Clint’s arrows flew through the air and embedded itself on top of the blob. A wave of protonic energy washed over the blob and it shuddered, ceasing its forward progress.

“Tony, stop making it angry and go finish the trench.”

Tony sighed and proceeded to as Steve ordered. He’d only been catching a breather, even if the trench digging was simple work.

He took one last shot at the blob and flew around to where Thor was depositing giant barrels of Anti-Slime Slime around the blob with gusto. Thor hadn’t been too pleased when his lightning seem to invigorate the blob. Tony let JARVIS set the HUD to show the path for the trench again and he primed his lasers for concrete cutting.

“Clint,” Steve called through the comms. “Progress?”

“The blob’s been eating up my arrows and Tasha’s stings like cotton candy. I’m out of Anti-Slime Slime arrows.” He fired another Waterfall Arrow at the blob. “Tasha’s ETA’s two minutes.”

Tony ejected the laser cartridge and primed a new one. He zoomed in on Clint in his HUD and saw his teammate roll away from a stream of red slime aimed at him. “Clint, if you need a Slime refill, I can put a barrel near you?”

“No point, Tony. When I said cotton candy, I meant cotton candy. They’ve been slagged.”

Tony scoffed. “My tech doesn’t get slimed.”

“Well, they did so they do.”

“Hmph.”

“Focus!” Steve called through the comms. “Clint, do you have enough ammo to keep the blob stunned?”

 “Cutting it close, but yeah I’m good.”

Thirty seconds later, Tony had finished digging the trench and watched as three Quinjets flew in to hover at the periphery, dropping suited PLASM agents to the ground each with a giant tank on their back and a massive hand held cannon.

“Anti-Slime platoon in position on the perimeter,” Natasha said through the comms. “On your mark, Cap.”

“Alright, people,” Steve called. “Thor, take Clint to high ground. Tony, fetch the Trap and take position above the blob.”

Tony flew down to Natasha and she threw the reprogrammed hexagonal Slime Trap at him with a salute. He fumbled with it, getting it to face the right way, and hovered in position above the blob.

“Everyone off the ground,” Steve confirmed. “Release the Slime.”

Clint activated the small explosives embedded into the tanks. The tanks blew open on the side facing the blob and spilled the yellow Anti-Slime Slime around it. The blob trembled and let out a low pitched keen.

Tony activated the Trap, holding it in place with both hands. It shuddered violently and he could feel his thrusters working hard as JARVIS stabilized him in the air. Good, because he didn’t think he had the full concentration to keep himself steady without some help. The blob gave a mighty groan and was slowly drawn into the Trap in a whirlwind of P.K.E.. Tony closed his eyes against the blinding interior of the Trap and waited it out. With a final gurgle, the blob was in and Tony tumbled back through the air at the recoil.

“Tony!” Steve called out. “You okay?”

Tony shook the light of the Trap from his eyes and brought up the camera diagnostics on his HUD. All fine, but it hadn’t filtered out the light. Weird. “I’m fine, Steve. JARVIS helped.” He looked around at the aftermath of the deblobbing.

The resultant flood of excess unanimated slime had slid to the ground with gravity and washed over the pavement into the trenches. The Anti-Slime platoon was spraying Anti-Slime Slime over anything red and oozing. After another fifteen seconds, everything that remained on the ground was a neutral grey. The platoon fiddled with their tanks and then started sucking up the slime from the ground.

Tony watched the progress then studied the Trap in his hands. He wondered if he could use this to leverage a Containment Unit out of Fury. He was readying his thrusters to full power when Fury’s voice came through the team comms.

“Stark, I know what you’re thinking. You know our policy. Everything into the Containment Unit.”

Tony cursed under his breath. “I have state of the art facilities at the Tower. If you’d just authorize a damned Containment Unit there—“

“Nuh-uh, Stark. The last time there was a Containment Unit in the streets of New York, we had city-wide pandemonium when it failed and _you_ are too much of a paranormal target for SHIELD to risk having millions of spirits near. You’re still only a consultant for PLASM and—”

“What were you going to do without me? Keep having your agents run around with those horrible particle accelerators on their back?”

“We appreciate what you’ve kindly contributed—“

Tony turned the channel off and blocked it for good measure. He knew what he was doing when he’d remade PLASM’s gear pro bono, the least Fury could do was to give him a Containment Unit in return. He thought for a second, then set a course towards the Helicarrier currently hovering over the Atlantic, magnetically sticking the Trap to his back. He brought up his personal files and flicked through all the data he had on the Containment Units. He was going to find out how they worked. And then make his own. He’d been trying on and off for years but he was just missing some magical ingredient he didn’t really want to think about. Certainty One did not include outright believing in _magic_. Certainty Two said anything was possible, but Tony drew a line at _magic_. If magic existed, then it was science. And Tony knew science. And science wasn’t magic because by definition, science defined things whereas magic was a load of hocus pocus nonsen—

“Fury has a point,” Steve said through the team's comms, interrupting Tony’s increasingly off topic train of thought.

Tony groaned and threw his head forward, hitting the inside of his helmet. “I know, but I refuse to believe we can’t make a workaround. Selfish bastard,” he added under his breath.

“Maybe you can ask him nicely back at the ‘carrier?” Steve suggested.

Tony glared at the little open comms icon on his HUD in lieu of having Steve beside him to glare at.

Steve only laughed, clearly having felt Tony’s response at those words. “Right. Not your style. How could I forget.”

Tony huffed. “I’m going to take the day off tomorrow. Have Larry-what’s-his-name cancel everything. Lounge in the sun.” Maybe take a more private bath, this time making sure Steve was far, far away….

“On the roof of your tower in this weather? You’ll catch a cold. How about you just catch a movie with me. JARVIS has being queueing up some nice Bollywood films.”

“Watching love-sick young people singing and dancing around a tree. I didn’t peg you for that kind of guy, Cap.”

“I happen to like the idea of dancing. Maybe not singing. But dancing is—“

 “Just get a room!” Clint yelled over the shared comms, and they all laughed, Tony chuckling weakly at the implication.

If only.

***

At the helicarrier, Tony stowed his armor in his ready room and lugged the Trap with him towards Lab 03. The thing was heavy, even with the weightless slime, and in his somewhat exhausted state he appreciated Natasha’s work with these things even more. He had about ten minutes before the rest of the team arrived for debrief.

Outside the lab, he swiped his phone over the access panel and watched as it cycled through lines of codes only to beep red. He frowned and tried it again. Red. Strange. He brought up the access controls for the doors on his phone just as the intercom from the lab clicked on.

“Put the trap through the chute on your right.”

Tony looked up at the intercom, then cycled to the lab cameras on his phone. They were on loop and Tony almost dropped the Trap on the ground and left then and there. It wasn’t like he could waltz in and _take_ the Containment Unit away; there was no need to go to such lengths. He only wanted to poke around the Unit.

 The door refused to open and Tony sighed, opening the chute door and dropping the Trap in. The chute hissed and clicked, and Tony heard the Trap being picked up on the other side. He waited thirty seconds then pulled up the access controls again, letting JARVIS run the unlock.

The door opened without warning and a familiar if much older figure stood before him.

Egon Spengler? ”Doctor Spengler?”

Spengler greeted him with a frown, nose wrinkled underneath wire-rimmed glasses. “Tony, what did you do to the Trap?”

Tony blinked. “You’re working for SHIELD?” He indicated Spengler’s entire living person. “You’re not actually dead? What did they offer you? Secrets of the universe? This was why you disappeared?”

Spengler held up the Trap. “SHIELD is thorough and funds well. And technically I’m contracted under PLASM. What did you do with the Trap?”

Tony shook his head, stowing his phone. Of all people to turn up not dead after decades. He was going to pick Spengler’s brain later. He studied the Trap in Spengler’s hands - it was definitely the one he’d brought back. “Uh, nothing. I may have scratched it, if you’re worried about the paint job.”

Spengler’s frown deepened and Tony almost took a step back at the intensity of the uncharacteristic scowl. “It’s empty.”

Impossible. “That’s not possible.”

“No psychokinetic energy. No psychomagnotheric energy. No anything.” Spengler flipped the switches on the side and the Trap opened.

Tony stumbled backwards, eyes wide, but nothing came flooding out, not even the cosmic light of the interior of the Trap. He looked back up to Spengler, confounded.

Spengler nodded. “Exactly. Now, we’re taking this to your debrief and you explain to everyone exactly what happened when that Trap activated and closed.” He turned and marched towards Conference Room Five.

Tony followed along. The slime hadn’t been other dimensional so it couldn’t have skipped like Colonel Sanders had. Could it have something to do with the light Tony saw when the Trap closed? It had been sickly green and went through all his filters. He pulled out his phone and cycled through data on the visible spectra of hauntings, tapping in a command for JARVIS to perform a search at the same time.

He was devising a plan to get a few contained spirits out of the Containment Unit when he stepped into the conference room behind Spengler and didn’t immediately notice that the room was dead silent despite the presence of his team as well as Fury and Hill. He looked up and saw everyone with their heads turned, staring straight at him.

Tony pocketed his phone and held up his hands. “I got lost. Spengler here found me.” He dropped his hands slowly and looked around the room. “You never stipulated a time for the meeting so I can’t be held accountable for missing the start. And where’s Steve?”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a blur of red, white and blue. He turned to smile in greeting when he saw what was in Steve’s hands.

It was Steve’s shield. Steve was still a ghost, translucent, and he was holding his shield.

Tony stared at it, then looked up at Steve’s face. Steve’s expression was torn between grinning widely and something that looked like worry. Or maybe fear.

Tony thought his heart might have stopped. He knew which one _he_ himself was feeling.

Everyone was looking between him and Steve, expressions anticipatory, wary. Tony’s gaze landed on Fury, who was wearing his standard long-suffering expression which meant he was gearing up to say something Tony was not going to like.

“How did Steve get his shield?” Tony asked the obvious, mind unable to come up with anything else. “How did _you_ have the shield?”

“We found it,” Fury said simply. “Picked up Howards old search missions and went from there. We only found it a few days ago, and only the shield.”

“It was me,” Steve said quickly. “I asked Fury—“

Steve had requested it? Tony shook his head violently and took a step away, glancing around at the room. There was a ringing in his ears and his heart was trying to beat right through his chest. His fingers refused to stop shaking and he clasped them into fists at his side. His eyes landed on Steve’s again. His breath hitched and he almost stumbled. “What were you going to do if you touched it and moved on? Right then?”

“Tony—“ Steve started again.

Tony shook his head sharply and took another step away. He was not prepared for this. He should have at least been here for this. They should have _talked_ about this first, before anything else. Why hadn’t Steve told him about this? Around the table, he saw Thor’s expression of sympathy, Hill was swiping through her tablet, and Clint and Natasha had both looked away, heads hanging. Had they known?

Tony took another step back and felt himself hitting the wall. He dropped his head into his hands. _Shit_. Was there no one here that wanted to _tell_ him anything? He was _not_ prepared for this. Through the gaps between his fingers, he saw Steve hover at his shoulder with the shield. The shield that Steve had apparently wanted to find. The shield that might have moved Steve on. The shield that might have moved Steve on without Tony being present to even say goodbye.

Fuck.

The shield. Of course. They'd never found Steve. His father had never found Steve. Steve could have gone down anywhere over the North Atlantic. The Arctic was a vast, everchanging landscape so the search for Captain America should not have been expected to be immediately fruitful, even if Howard never accepted the failures. And now, Nick Fury had just gone and found it, just like that. At Steve's prompt. 

Tony should have known. They'd never figured out Steve's way to move on. Why couldn't it have been something like 'find the shield'? Being anchored to the vibranium in Tony's should have been a dead giveaway.

Tony felt his own nails dig into his forehead.

He should've known. He should've realized. He hadn't wanted to know. He hadn't wanted to realize. 

Fuck, he'd been so selfish.

He pushed away from the wall and left the room. He heard his name being called behind him but he ignored it and kept walking towards the hangar, swiping the emergency sequence on his phone and calling JARVIS for the suit.

Fuck.

Steve’s existence didn’t revolve around Tony, and of course Steve would want to move on. Steve was dead. Steve was a ghost. Steve was a ghost just _so_ he could move on to his after-life.

Who was Tony, to deprive Steve of that? He’d started to fall so hard, so fast, he hadn’t even realized that there could’ve been no one there to catch him when he did.

What was it that Certainty Two told him? That anything was possible? Anything, including the things that would hurt him, even if he hadn’t known until just then.

And if Steve had just left without a word?

Tony would have hurt.


	11. Ghost in the Machine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A minor warning for a bit of dubiously consensual groping towards the end of the chapter, not actually from either Steve or Tony.

When Steve had been young - shorter than everyone, louder than anyone, and sicklier than an entire hospital ward - he had been certain of the one thing in life: he would probably not live beyond his teenage years, despite the tender care of his mother, and he’d never looked far into the future beyond vague concepts and general wants and desires. Even through his victories against HYDRA, he’d never thought anything more than what it was they had to do next to win the war.

After meeting Peggy, after Doctor Erskine, getting his new body, joining the war, finding Bucky again, losing Bucky, and as he had stared into the ice as it had rushed towards him, he’d suddenly known what he had wanted to do with his life after the war, in the future. It was when you were staring death in the eyes as you met it head on that you realized what you had truly wanted out of life and he had wanted a life with Peggy. It had been his one regret in that moment: that he had waited. He’d closed his eyes to the sound of Peggy’s voice and he’d fallen into the unknown abyss that had been death.

And then he’d opened his eyes, and had seen Tony and suddenly, he’d been in the world again. As a ghost. Neither here nor there.

In the past year, he’d been to more places, experienced more things than he ever had when he’d been alive. And what was the purpose of it all? He knew the Avengers had acted to move him on from this half-existence but as nothing had worked, this objective had fallen to the wayside. There was never any burning desire in Steve to do anything, want anything - nothing like what Class Four ghosts should feel. Steve had started to just enjoy the moment. And those moments had, of late, become moments with just Tony.

When Tony had run from the Conference Room, fear in his eyes, Steve had realized his mistake.

After his nightmare of the fight with the Skull and the Cube, Steve had gone to Director Fury with a request for information regarding the Cube. The dream had been the first time Steve realized that although the Skull had been taken from the Earth, the Cube, something of such immense power, had remained. Tony hadn’t known anything about it, and neither had Clint, Bruce or Natasha, and Thor had still been away for the holidays. So he’d gone to Director Fury, who had known something but he hadn’t shared it with Steve. Steve had then asked after the Valkyrie, the bombs, his shield, his body, and Fury honestly hadn’t known anything about any of it.

And then they’d gone and found his shield. And Steve, Steve had been able to touch the shield. Feel it, wield it. The thought of all the things he could do now, of how he could interact with the world at large with something corporeal in his hands had made him giddy with happiness, if a little fearful at the full extent of possibilities. When Tony had entered the room, Steve had been eager to share the discovery.

He’d known that he wouldn’t move on from touching the shield, from seeing the shield, but Tony obviously hadn’t. At Tony’s words, he’d realized what he’d almost made Tony go through, and he felt his own flash of fear of what he had almost given up. And in that moment, he’d realized that he already knew what it was he had wanted. Steve had felt like he did in the ice. It came to him, and he knew what he wanted, now. He knew why he’d known that the shield could never have moved him on.

What he wanted was to stay, with Tony.

He blinked, and he was standing in Tony’s workshop back at the tower, shield miraculously still in his hands. He looked around and saw a head of messy brown hair poking over the headrest in one of Tony’s vintage cars. Steve hesitated but made his way towards Tony. When he reached the car, he saw Tony had a cheek resting on a close fist, arm braced over the door. His eyes were closed but they looked red-rimmed, dark circles beneath them.

Tony had been working too hard, still balancing his time between his company, PLASM missions, and his personal down-time. Steve was sure Tony had been sleeping well, and nothing had been haunting him for months but there was no mistaking how this lifestyle was taking a toll on him. Steve knew much of it was for his sake and he’d encouraged Tony to spend more time with SI if that was what he had to do. Steve didn’t really mind. Watching Tony work was becoming his favorite past-time. Watching Tony suffer, however, was not.

He stepped right through the door of the car and took a seat by Tony, reaching back to deposit the shield in the backseat. Tony didn’t show any indication of knowing Steve was present but he shifted at the sound of the shield touching the leather.

“I’d forgotten, you know,” Tony said, eyes still closed. “You’re here for a reason, a purpose.”

Steve knew. “If that purpose was to stay?”

Tony opened his eyes and turned his head fractionally to look at Steve. Steve could see how bloodshot they were and he worried. “That’s a paradox,” Tony waved a hand at him. “Why would you show up now, if you wanted to stay? Why not right after you dropped the plane?”

“Maybe I wanted to stay with you,” Steve answered, honest.

Tony looked away and rubbed at his eyes. “That makes even less sense. I wasn’t even close to existing when you died. Why would it be me?”

Steve was a patient man when he wanted to be, and he would sit through this until Tony looked at him with bright, happy eyes again. “Tony, can you honestly say that you’ve figured out every aspect of the paranormal? We don’t even know why ghosts exist. We don’t even know the meaning of life. This is what I want and I think that’s enough, don’t you?”

“Then why did you go ask Fury to look for your shield?”

“I didn’t,” Steve said firmly. “There was - remember that dream of mine I told you about?” He waited for Tony to nod before continuing. “That Cube, it’s still out there somewhere. I just wanted to know more about it. I didn’t know they’d go looking for it. And I definitely didn’t expect them to find anything even if they did.”

Tony huffed a laugh at that and Steve counted it a small step forward. He watched as Tony picked at the steering wheel, eyes focused on nothing in particular. Steve waited. He would always wait.

“You could’ve just disappeared on me,” Tony said. “Surprisingly, it wasn’t something I had planned to experience any time soon.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Steve said, injecting all the conviction he had into his voice. “I want to stay. I’m going to stay.”

They sat in silence and Steve let Tony absorb it. He’d meant it. He wanted to stay. He was going to stay. With Tony.

“I was thinking about taking you out somewhere nice tomorrow,” Tony said at last. “Wherever you want. Just the two of us.”

Steve’s phantom heart skipped a beat. Tony’s eyes flicked towards him and Steve could see the nervousness in the tightness at the corners. It was endearing to see Tony being nervous for anything at all, because of Steve. That humbled him, just a little, but he smiled back. It was what he wanted, after all. “I’d like that,” he said. And smiled wider when he finally saw a small quirk at the corner of Tony’s mouth.

“Done deal,” Tony said, now grinning. He shifted closer to Steve and Steve would’ve felt the warmth from the proximity if this had been a dream. Tony fidgeted with his hands and Steve wanted to feel the motion beneath his own. “I have a favor to ask.”

“Anything,” Steve said immediately.

Tony looked down at his chest, where the arc reactor, Steve’s anchor, glowed bright. “Mind giving it a poke?” He tapped at the arc reactor. “I feel like crap and the last time you touched it, it made me feel less crap. Energized and all that.” Tony looked away, flushing a little, grin faltering. “But, uh, if it weirds you out—“

“No,” Steve said quickly, shaking his head once. “I can do that. For you.” He looked at his gloved hands briefly, then removed the gloves and tucked them into his belt. Hands now bare, he raised one, fingers hovering an inch from the surface of the arc reactor, then looked back up at Tony, asking permission. Tony turned to perch a knee onto the seat and shifted forward that last inch, letting Steve’s fingers sink into him.

A soft warmth bloomed beneath Steve’s fingers and he pushed forward, just a little, and grasped at it. The feeling of wholeness, of connection, of purpose bloomed through his mind, just like that first time they’d done this, out on the ruined lawns of Bryant Park. To his phantom hands, it was like holding onto a solid mass of air, hard, yet soft at the same time. A tingle raced up his arm, unlike the first time he’d done this, and Steve gave an experimental squeeze just to feel it again. He felt a spike of pleasure pool in his belly and Tony gasped out loud in the same moment.

Steve looked up, alarmed, but Tony’s expression was relaxed, calm. The warm tingling was travelling up Steve’s arm to the rest of his body, racing through his veins, and he brought his other hand up to cup at the vibranium core, his anchor, Tony’s _heart._

Tony bit back something that sounded almost like a moan and Steve’s hands jerked a little in surprise, pushing. Tony tipped back with the movement and he opened his eyes to stare back at Steve, equally surprised. “You can move me?”

Steve took in the car around them, the distances, the space. “Let’s try,” he breathed, and pushed at the anchor, moving with Tony as Tony landed on his back on the car seat with an _oomph_ followed by a bright peal of laughter.

“It really should be the backseat of a car, Captain, but how American of you.”

That startled a laughter out of Steve and he braced a hand on the seat by Tony’s head, the other still held loosely at Tony’s chest. “Moment, Tony. We’re having a moment.”

“I know,” Tony said cheerfully. “Now don’t leave me in suspense.”

Steve gave him a small squeeze in response and watched in delight as Tony groaned in pleasure, turning his head to the side, eyes closed tight. Steve felt that tug from the anchor, the one that had always brought him back to Tony and he stroked a thumb over the warmth, feeling it tug him closer still. Tony was almost panting beneath him, breath catching in his throat with every one of Steve’s strokes.

Steve wanted to hear more.

He quickened his pace, squeezing firmly with every upstroke. He let his palm roll smoothly over the warmth, trying to draw more of noises of pleasure from Tony, and smiling when it finally did.

The warmth beneath his palm was growing hotter with every movement, stronger, surging through his arms and the rest of his body in waves of almost unbearable heat. It felt so wholesome, so _good_ , like being _home_ and Steve hoped Tony was feeling the same. He squeezed his hand closed again and Tony moaned high and beautiful, back arching, one hand scrambling on the seat at his hips, the other clenched by his head at Steve’s other hand.

Steve drew his hand out just a little, the warmth with the back of his hand. He pressed down firmly when Tony’s back arched off the seat again. Tony let out a rasping laugh that turned into another moan when Steve resumed his stroking.

“This works so much better than the dream sex I envisioned,” Tony gasped. “Mostly because it’s actually happening.”

Steve chuckled, letting his fingers roam in a random pattern of caresses. Tony groaned again, louder, neck baring. “We’ll try that next time,” Steve promised.

Tony nodded, pupils dilated wide. Steve rolled his palm over the warmth, pressing Tony hard back into the seat. He tightened his fist and rolled his wrist, massaging in smooth movements.

Tony’s moans became short and breathless, loud and uncontrolled. The tug of the anchor pulled taut and a wave of heat surged up Steve’s palm, settling in his chest at his own heart. It grew tighter and tighter, hotter and hotter, almost agonizing in its intensity. With a final stroke, all the pressure released, and Steve tipped his head forward, mouth open, groaning at the pleasure of the heat swelling and bursting inside him.

There was a weak chuckle. Steve opened his eyes from his haze to glance down into Tony’s bright, happy eyes.

“Wow,” Tony said, still breathless. “I didn’t know I needed that on my bucket list but apparently I do.”

Steve huffed in amusement. Tony Stark, never letting a moment go unsullied by his terrible humor. And Steve loved him for it even more.

His eyes snapped open wide at that thought. Love? Did he? He looked at Tony. Tony was smiling back at him so fondly, a hand rubbing idly below the arc reactor.

Did he? Could he? Could he give himself to this man?

Steve leaned back, decision made, and slowly withdrew his hand from the warm—

The tug from the anchor snapped.

Steve fell backwards in shock and stared down at the hand he’d pulled away. He looked back up at Tony.

Tony choked, eyes wide, skin turning pale, hands clutching at his chest. The arc reactor wasn’t glowing.

“Tony!”

Steve reached through Tony’s hands into the arc reactor but he couldn’t feel anything there. He couldn’t feel the tug of the anchor anymore. _No._ He reached back to grab his shield and was preparing to signal in Morse at any one of JARVIS’s cameras when Bruce came barrelling through the door at the other end of the workshop. Steve watched as he ran to Tony’s little safe room and emerged with a glowing spare reactor and a large med kit.

“Out of the way,” Bruce growled, eyes green, and Steve fell out of the car right through the chassis in his haste to obey. He crawled from the car then turned to face the burst of light from the middle of the workshop.

Tony stood there.

Except Tony should be in the car behind Steve. Steve turned and saw Bruce in the car, ripping open Tony’s shirt to bare the broken arc reactor. He turned back.

Tony stood in the open space of the workshop. His hands were loose at his side, and the shirt that he had worn, that had been torn by Bruce _just then_ , was now hanging off his shoulders, revealing the arc reactor. The light from the reactor was glowing the green of the light that Steve had always seen during the hauntings, and on that earlier mission with the Love Slime.

Tony was translucent.

“No....” Steve breathed out. No. It couldn’t be.

“Love is a human emotion,” ghost-Tony said in an unfamiliar tone. He walked towards Steve as if floating through honey. “But it is powerful and it would have made a good brother.” He stopped right before Steve, a foot away, and smiled with a tilted head. It was unnatural, but somehow familiar even on Tony’s features. And Steve knew where he’d seen it before.

“You’re the thing from the ice,” Steve realized. “You were with me. You, in Tony’s dreams.” This couldn’t be Tony. Tony was behind him. Bruce was tending to Tony. Tony was _alive_.

Not-Tony laughed, the sound inhuman. “I _was_ with you in the ice, trapped unwittingly by my brother, weakened. I kept you, and yet you never let me have you. But this,” he stepped into Steve’s space, hands roaming over Steve’s chest, up his arms, down to his hands to the shield, “led me to Anthony, and with this,” he pressed at Steve’s chest, over Steve’s phantom heart, “you gave me enough strength to finally get what I needed.”

Steve stood frozen, letting this, this _thing_ that wasn’t Tony run its hands over him. When the hands reached his hips, he swept his shield at it and staggered backwards. Behind him, he could hear Bruce speaking rapidly with JARVIS. Tony had to be alive. _This thing wasn’t_ _Tony._ “What did you do to the arc reactor? What did you do to Tony?”

The thing wearing Tony’s face tipped its head to the side, studying Steve. “Those broken pieces of souls Anthony had around him were never enough to satiate me. Or, Vanko was it? Vanko was disgusting. And then you interfered, and I had to summon more.” It tapped at its chest, over the green glow. “Anthony never said yes. He was so close, all those times, and I could only drain him so much. He’s such a fragile creature,” it grinned with _Tony’s_ mischievous expression. “But if I could just make him die, I wouldn’t need permission to take him.” Its grin widened. “He is mine now.”

_No._

Steve lunged forward, all semblance of calm evaporating in an instant. His shoulder connected with the _thing_ and they went down on the ground in a heap with Steve straddling on top. He pressed the edge of the shield to the _thing’s_ throat and felt it cut into the phantom flesh. The _thing_ only smiled wider, wilder.

“What would it take,” Steve gritted out, “to make you put Tony back. Revive him. And then stay away from him.”

The _thing_ bared its teeth, expression almost feral on its borrowed features. “What makes you think he can be revived?”

Steve pressed harder with the shield and it hissed.

“Say yes. Let me have _you_.”

“And you’ll give Tony back immediately?” Steve asked without hesitation. “Bring him to life again? Leave him? Stop draining his life?”

The _thing_ nodded, baring its neck like Tony had beneath Steve, only moments before, teeth bared within a smile. “Promise. Let me have _you_.”

Steve forced the tension out from his limbs and closed his eyes, phantom breath leaving his body in a rush.

When Steve had been a boy, he’d been certain of one thing in life: everyone he knew and loved would outlive him. Against all odds, it had mostly turned out to be false, and a new certainty had grown in his mind over the years: everything he wanted in life came at a cost. He had envisioned a life with Peggy after the war, and he’d lost that as the cost of saving America from the Red Skull’s terror. And at the cost of his own life. And before that? He had a new body, but Doctor Erskine gave his life for it. They’d been winning the war against HYDRA, and he’d lost Bucky for it. Whatever he wanted, it cost him something, someone he loved.

What had his life been but a series of events and his reactions to them? He thought he could break that cycle in death but that didn’t appear to be the case. It didn’t matter whether or not he had only been kept here because of some paranormal force’s whims; he had wanted to stay with Tony, but he wanted Tony safe more than anything else.

Steve nodded, eyes still closed. “Yes.”

Steve felt the world shatter around him at his word and his already limited senses faded one by one until all he could feel was the shield on his arm. It wasn’t all that bad. It felt like it had, in the ice. The numbness. The darkness. Wasn’t this what he had waiting for him, eventually, if he had stayed as a ghost? Maybe it was better this way, less painful for everyone involved.

He faded.

He hoped Tony would understand.


	12. Your Hand in Mine

Tony woke screaming. Bruce’s anxious face was hovering over him but behind his eyelids, Tony could see the image of Steve hovering above him instead, shield pressing into the neck of his hijacked ghostly self.

Steve had said ‘yes’ and Tony woke in that same instant screaming, “No!”

He sat up and pushed Bruce away roughly. The workshop around them was empty. No one else was there apart from Bruce and the only other movement was from DUM-E and U’s frantic wheeling.

Steve’s shield was on ground a little ways off and Tony staggered towards it, picking it up and glancing around for any sign of Steve. As his fingers closed over the shield, he felt a prickle of heat at his fingertips, rising up his arms to settle in his chest. He thought he heard a chuckle and he stared down at the shield just in time to see a green glow vanish, the same green hue as the light he’d seen when he’d Trapped the blob just earlier in the day.

“Tony!” Bruce called out from behind him. “You just _died_ on me! Get back here and let me _check you_!”

“I’m fine,” Tony said harshly. And he was. He felt more rejuvenated and energized than he had since… since as long as he remembered. It had all been because of that damned _thing_ that had been in his arc reactor.

“What happened?” Bruce asked, coming to stand next to him, a hand on his shoulder. “Why did your arc reactor fail? The vibranium was completely fried. Did Steve do this?”

Tony’s hands tightened on the shield. _That idiot_. “There was something possessing the arc reactor, the vibranium,” he said quickly. “It used to be in Steve’s shield but it migrated. It kept Steve from moving on and it’s been absorbing P.K.E.; my hauntings, the slime today, probably the Colonel we thought had skipped dimension, _me_ , and it broke the reactor and tried to use my ghost to gain more power and Steve traded mine for his and now he’s gone and that entity is _somewhere_ doing _something, God fucking dammit_!” Tony threw the shield away from him in a pique. It crashed through the contents of two of his workbenches and the sound of metal cluttering to the floor echoed through the workshop.

Tony paced in a small circle around Bruce, hands running harshly through his hair.

God _fucking_ _dammit_! Sacrificial _son of a bitch!_

They’d just worked out this thing between them and then this had happened. Oh, God. He’d lost Steve. He’d had Steve. _He’d had Steve_ and _he lost him_ within the same day. Even worse - something _took_ Steve. That thing, that entity, it _took_ Steve.

Tony stopped pacing and glared at Bruce with a levelled finger. “We’re going to the helicarrier. You’re my eye witness. We’re going to get answers.” He ignored Bruce’s protest, went to pick up Steve’s shield, and marched out towards the elevator for the hanger and a Quinjet.

Steve might not be gone yet. The universe hated Tony sometimes but this was too far. Tony was going to find Steve again, by whatever means necessary. He would bring Steve back.

***

Tony opened his eyes. There was nothing but darkness and he was floating, unable to tell up from down. He raised a hand to wave in front of his face but couldn’t see it, could only feel it.

He twisted around and tried to find anything in the darkness that wasn’t more darkness. Wasn’t he in the Conference Room on the helicarrier? What had happened? Where was everyone?

Heat pulsed at the centre of his chest and he looked down to see Steve’s shield, somewhere far below him. He willed himself to go near it and when he reached out to touch it, a small puff of green light emerged and hovered between him and the shield. “Are you the thing that took Steve?” Tony demanded.

It was quivering and Tony thought it was crying.

Tony didn’t feel an ounce of sympathy. Instead, he felt the heat of anger rise at his throat. He tried to grab for the puff but his hands met nothing. The puff glowed bright, green, at the half-contact and Tony clenched his fists. “Put him back,” Tony snarled. “Where is he? Put him back to how he was.”

“I need more power. He was not whole. I could not take him all.”

 _Dammit_. “What happened to Steve? Why do you need power? What are you going to do?”

The puff wiggled and Tony _refused_ to feel anything other than contempt for it. “I cannot give you Steve. I want to be whole again. Be with my brothers again.”

Tony ground his teeth. “Why can’t you give me Steve? What are you going to do when you’re whole? Who’re your brothers?”

“I am weak. I cannot escape yet. I just want to be whole again. Be with my brothers. One of them is near. I feel him. He is near. Right here. I just want to be—“

“ _Let Steve go!”_

“ _Let me hav—_ “

***

To this point in Tony’s life, there were three certainties he lived by: one, that logic and the scientific method were the only effective ways of thought; two, that anything was possible unless proven otherwise; three, that Captain America was a symbol, a paragon, but Steve Rogers was the good man beneath the mask and more than that, he was a good friend. As of a few hours ago, Steve was a good friend, and maybe something more, corporeal state be damned.

Certainty One was straining under new evidence, Certainty Two was thriving under new evidence, and Certainty Three was something Tony had to keep with him despite everything. Tony had gone through non-consensual body modification. Tony had gone through death by palladium. Tony had literally just gone through death by soul removal. And now, he was facing the reality of souls.

What was it that Spengler’s old files had hypothesized? That the ghosts they’d dealt with were simply the remnants of souls which had moved on. Souls. The essence of human life. It was no wonder that Steve had been more human than any Class Three or Four haunting had ever been. They were remnants, imprints; but Steve had been _whole._ Pure. Different. Of an energy they couldn’t detect because it hadn’t decayed like all those others. Uncharacterized, and dismissed by Tony as a consequence.

He should have known better.

 _It is the Soul Stone,_ Thor had said, after Tony had woken again in the Conference Room. _One of six singularities of great power, once a part of a whole, still striving to be whole. As its name suggests, it collects souls, keeps them, plays with them. Perhaps it was weakened in its attempts to be near its brother, I do not know, but it would require its essence to regain its power._

It’s essence. It needed souls. It had wanted Steve. It had taken Steve. It needed more.

Or, as Tony finally stood in front of the helicarrier’s Containment Unit, it could take all of the remnants of souls that had ever been captured to date.

It had taken Steve. And if he couldn’t get it to obey him in its weakened state, then Tony was going to manifest the damn rock to its full power and get Steve back himself.

His methods were sound - he had the evidence - and unlike his dad, he wasn’t going to lose Steve. The rest of the Avengers and PLASM were currently in the streets of New York, responding to the sudden outbreak of hauntings. Tony had convened with them at the helicarrier, collapsed, and then the sirens had become endless and they had left. Tony had stayed behind, here. He knew what he might have to do and no one was going to talk him out of this.

Tony stepped up to the single metallic door of the Containment Unit. The Soul Stone’s brother, the Tesseract, the cube Steve had talked about, the _thing_ that had been missing from all of Tony’s equations for the operation of the Containment Unit, spread its cosmic glow through the crystalline walls of the Unit. The same glow that was within the Traps they’d used. Through the glow, Tony could see a shadow of the miasma of captured spirits, frenzied and unable to escape. The seal of the door hissed as Tony spun it open. He slid the container for the Tesseract gently from its hold and kept it in place, holding up Steve’s shield towards it. It flared iridescent, as if it knew its brother was near but nothing happened.

Looked like Plan A didn’t work. Tony tapped his knuckles on the shield’s surface then reached up to remove the Tesseract from the seal of the Containment Unit. “Knock, knock. Time to feast.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth that his arc reactor glowed bright. And through the single opening of the Containment Unit, the spirits, the soul remnants flowed out in moans and screeches and slammed into Tony’s chest like a sledgehammer.

Tony was thrown off his feet, landing heavily on his back. There was a heavy pressure at his chest, pressing him into the hard ground but at the same time, he felt he was being pulled upwards, away, out of himself. He scrambled for something to hold on to and his hands found nothing but smooth floor. The Tesseract was still sitting at the opening of the Containment Unit by the dropped shield and Tony fought against the waves of spirits spiralling in gusts around him to reach it at a half-crawl; he had to seal the Unit again, once the Stone had had enough. The light from his chest was now blinding and he squinted his eyes against it, waiting for his moment, one hand on the Tesseract’s container.

The rush of spirits slowed and finally stopped. The displaced air returned with a gust, but still the Stone was nowhere in sight. He looked down at this chest, where the arc reactor was glowing green. Had the Stone migrated back into the arc reactor? It couldn’t be inside, could it?

_No manner of these broken souls will be enough._

Tony heaved himself to his feet and whipped around in search of the source of the voice but he was still alone in the lab. He looked back down at his chest, where there was a faint pulse of warmth. “That you there, rock?”

_I’ll need to summon more. I need something whole._

“Wait, no!”

Tony heard the sirens on the helicarrier sound again. The lab was flashing red with the rise and fall of the klaxons. More call-outs for high Class entities. More trouble in the streets. Shit. PLASM was only so big; they couldn’t deal with this level of activity. The team was already called out for two Class Sevens, one stampede of Class Sixes, twelve Class Fives, and more than a hundred of other minor paranormal activities from all around the five boroughs. Even if Tony had joined them, they were not going to be able to contain this.

What would Steve have done? Actually, Tony knew _exactly_ what Steve would have done. Because the bastard had gone and done it already. Time for Plan C.

“What do you need?” Tony asked the room at large, arms thrown wide. “What else do you need? Me?”

_I want Steven. I can’t have Steven. Will you give me Steven?_

What? “What? What do you mean?”

_He gave a piece of himself to you. Will you let me have him?_

_What?_ “What? No! What do you mean?”

_He gave a piece of himself to you. Will you let me have him?_

The words swirled through Tony’s mind and Tony almost laughed out loud as the loose pieces clicked slowly into place, one by one. What was the Certainty Two had told him? Anything was possible. Him, a man of science, dealing in _souls_. Him, a man of science, _holding a piece of Captain America’s soul._ No, _Steve’s_ soul. That Steve had given to him.

He was holding a piece of Steve’s soul. Tony closed his eyes at the surge of emotion. He needed to bring Steve back.

“If I let you have a piece of my soul equivalent to what he gave me of his,” Tony asked the Stone, voice level, “will it be enough? Will it make Steve whole? Will you stop with the summoning? Take me to Steve?”

_Yes. Let me have you?_

Tony would never hesitate for this. “Yes.”

A green glow from the arc reactor flared, permeating the lab and Tony’s vision. A numbness was crawling from his chest and he felt a weakness in his limbs but he forced himself to stay upright, waiting. The green glow coalesced in streaks of light into a small green stone before him, and Tony used the last of the strength in his limbs to grab at it with his hands, holding it to his chest. Taking its power for himself.

What had Thor said? _It is not for mortals to handle. Call for me, if you discover its whereabouts._ Tony thought he should have heeded it more.

The burn was agonizing. It tore through his body from where the Stone was touching him but with it came a rush of something powerful, something flowing and thrumming, resonating with his being and his will, and then beyond, into the world, the universe.

He grasped tighter onto the Stone and when he opened his eyes, he wasn’t looking at the lab – he was looking at the world as it was, teeming with the life, _souls_ , of the people. He could see brighter glows of the souls of his teammates; Natasha, Clint, Thor. Hulk was a giant blur of colors. All of them scattered in the streets of New York, trying to contain the fainter glows that were the remnants of what once was whole. He could see Pepper in Seattle, Happy by her side. Rhodey was in D.C.. They were all glowing with life. The entire planet was glowing with life, some brighter, some disappearing.

Beyond the planet around him, Tony could see pinpricks of light from far away, at the edges of the galaxy, the universe. He screwed his eyes against the rush of distances and focused back on to Earth, to New York. As promised, the Stone stopped summoning more to the world and Tony could see many of the fainter glows vanish.

But all around him, he couldn’t see the one soul he wanted.

_Take me to him._

He ignored the searing burn of the Stone in his palm and focused on _Steve_ , willing himself to see _Steve_. The world around him vanished at his thought and he swayed forward, almost dropping to his knees. His entire left arm was agonising, crackling in heat and pain from holding the Stone but he continued to ignore it, searching around him.

He was in his bedroom at the Tower. Outside the windows, the city twinkled with the light of a quiet night. Beyond the city, the sky was fractured and broken as if inconsequential. There was a shuffling from his bed and he turned in time to see a pale muscular arm emerge from the large shape under the sheets and wrap itself around the smaller body in front of it.

It was Steve. And it was him. In his bed. Except it wasn’t _him._

Tony walked up to the bed, wincing as every step sent a jolt of pain up his arm and to his chest. The Stone in his palm pulsed with heat in time with his heartbeat, stinging the edges of his entire being. He ignored it and looked down at the sight of himself tangled in bed with Steve, fast asleep. Their hair was mussed and the thin sheets left no doubt as to their nakedness.

This was what Tony might have wanted. Was this what Steve had wanted? Was this how the Soul Stone kept the souls it collected? In some Matrix-like simulation, keeping them happy and docile so it could have them forever? He was ashamed to say that he might’ve been tempted to stay if this was what would be waiting for him.

Tony closed his eyes against the peaceful sight before him. He didn’t know what the after-life was, but this couldn’t be it. He opened his eyes again and reached forward to wake Steve.

“Steve,” he said, nudging at a well-muscled shoulder. “Wake up. Time to take the red pill.”

Steve snuffled and buried his face deeper into Tony’s hair. _Other_ -Tony’s hair. Tony kept trying, nudging at Steve, harder and harder, but Steve refused to wake. Another wave of heated pain lanced up his arm, this time refusing to diffuse from his chest and he let himself fall heavily against the glass of his windows, trying to catch his breath and bring his focus back.

The Stone was in his power now. He could just, will this away, will Steve out of it. He grasped tighter to the Stone and _willed_ it. For Steve to wake, for Steve to leave this false, happy, world. For them to travel back to the real world. With Tony.

He felt a tug somewhere from his chest and the world around him spun. He dropped to his knees, riding the vertigo, and when he opened his eyes again, he was looking at a grey floor. The heat was spreading through his torso and his left arm was entirely numb now. He clenched his jaw against the burning and stood heavily. All around him was an endless grey space with fractals of light appearing here and there, flashing in and out of existence as fast as he could blink.

Steve was standing with his back to him, just ahead, and Tony shuffled forward, feet heavy. The numbness was spreading down his torso and to his legs now, and he stumbled as his vision flashed dark for an instant.

When he could see again, he was staring at the white star of a certain uniform, held tight in warm, strong arms.

“Tony?”

Tony nodded, and then shook his head, clearing the ringing from his ears. “Hey, Steve. Welcome back.” He tried to smile up at Steve and he thought it came out cheerful. “Got you away from the thing, the Soul Stone,” he held up his left arm, or tried to, showing Steve the green glow from between his fingers. “Don’t do stupid things like sacrificing your soul for me. You were just going to leave me like that? Did you ever consider what I’d feel about it?”

Steve blinked and Tony could see him put together everything that had transpired. Confusion, to horror, resignation, acceptance, bliss, more confusion, and finally, realization. Good, because Tony didn’t think he had the energy for longwinded explanations. The numbness was travelling up his neck and he couldn’t feel his heartbeat anymore.

“It was your _life,_ ” Steve said, vehement. “It took your _life._ ”

“And this is your _existence_ ,” Tony retorted, hissing as a searing, red heat started to build up in his left palm again, pulsing at his fingertips. Steve’s arms tightened around him and Tony didn’t have the heart to tell him it was more painful than not.

“I did what I thought was right.”

“Steve, you didn’t even know what you gave power to.”

“It was going to get it either way. It was either you or me. And I’m already dead. It wasn’t even a choice. If I can help, why shouldn’t I?”

“Because it was my decision too!”

Tony blinked away the blurriness in his eyes and tried to maintain his glare at Steve. Steve had a look of shock on his face, mouth open but silent. Steve looked back behind himself, as if trying to see what he’d been dragged from.

“I was happy,” Steve said quietly.

“It wasn’t real,” Tony said, firm.

Steve turned back to him, eyes dull. “I wanted it to be.”

Tony’s ears were ringing louder and louder and his eyes were refusing to unblur, but he felt a strong beat of his heart in his numbed chest. “Will you stay with me?”

Tony felt his left hand shudder, straining against his will, and he told his hand to _keep closed_. Steve evidently felt it because he pushed Tony away to stare wide eyed at Tony’s hand. Tony looked down, and wished he hadn’t. His entire left arm was ashen and translucent, the power of the Soul Stone crackling in glowing streaks across his skin. Tony reached up with his right hand, nudging Steve’s gaze away from it.

“What have you done?” Steve breathed.

“Gave it a little boost, then used it to find you,” Tony said cheerfully. The Stone shuddered in his grasp again, and Tony willed it to _do what he wanted_.

“It promised me to stay away from you.”

“And you promised it your whole soul.”

Steve gaped at him. “And?”

Tony smiled. “It didn’t have it, because I had a piece of it, and I traded a piece of mine for it. Gave it to you. Made you whole again.” A spasm tore up Tony’s left arm, from the Stone, and Tony couldn’t help but cry out at the pain. Shit, he couldn’t keep this up. He tried to drop the Stone, but….

But it wasn’t letting him take them back. Something was resisting it. The Stone had manifested and he was holding it. He knew that. The Stone was in his will. He could _feel that._ But it wasn’t _working_.

“Tony,” Steve said, his voice sounding far-away. “What is it doing to you? Let it go. Let it—“

Tony shook his head, eyes still closed tight, _willing._ The burn was spreading again, his numbed body was now burning like it was doused in molten iron. He shook his head again. He could only shake his head. ”I’m trying to take us back. I’m, it won’t let me. I can’t—“

“It’s me,” Steve said.

Tony’s eyes shot open. “What do you mean?”

“I feel it, Tony,” Steve continued, looking behind himself. “There’s something pulling me towards it. That light. I can’t not go to it.” He looked back at Tony, eyes downcast. “I can’t stay.”

As Steve spoke, Tony was aware that there was a second source of light blooming around them. He turned his head and saw a starburst of pure white light grow just over Steve’s shoulder.

Tony felt a touch at his jaw and his head was slowly turned to face Steve. Steve was smiling, gentle, and Tony knew where this was headed. He tried to shake his head but his neck wasn’t obeying him anymore.

“I had a good time,” Steve said. “With the team, with you,” he raised another hand to cup at Tony’s cheek, “and it would have been my choice to stay, even as a ghost.”

Tony tried to shake his head. “I can make it—I can use it—“ his throat stopped working and his vision was fading.

“It’s draining you, Tony, so let me go. _Live._ ”

Tony shook his head. There had to be something he could do. The Stone, it had kept Steve back in this world, but surely— His mind was clouding over and he shook his head again, hard, trying to clear it.

“I’m glad I got to spend my last moment with you,” Steve said, soft. “We can try this again, in the next life. Promise.”

Tony squeezed his eyes shut, trying to feel the body before him, but couldn’t. He could only feel the pinpoints of fingertips at his cheek and the burning from the Stone in his palm. He wanted to keep Steve, but. But he wouldn’t deprive Steve of his after-life. And he wouldn’t break that promise to Steve, all those months ago as they stood laughing together.

Slowly, Tony nodded. The Stone in his palmed flared with heat again and the numbness returned. This time, Tony knew it would be final. He nodded again, firmly, and looked back up to Steve, eyes flicking between his eyes and his lips in inquisition. Steve smiled and slowly, dipped his head down towards Tony.

The burning numbness had taken all his senses but Tony could feel the barest brush of lips on his. A trickle of strength bled into him at the touch and he felt the numbness recede, just a little, and he relished the fleeting feeling of warmth on his lips. He squeezed his eyes closed and nodded again, willing his grip on the Soul Stone to loosen.

The hands on his face slipped away and Tony opened his eyes to the sight of Steve being pulled back towards the blooming white light. He used the last of his strength, his will, to stand and reach for Steve, only to catch the final brush of Steve’s fingertips as he was drawn into the light.

He thought he saw Steve say something but he couldn’t hear it. He thought he knew what it was. He tried to say it back, tried to make his lips form the words. The Stone was still in his grasp and it was burning through his entire being, consuming him. He loosened his grip further, feeling the burn lessen and his throat finally obeyed him.

Steve smiled, that boyish smile that Tony loved, and with a wave, he was engulfed in the light.

Tony felt his hand open and the Soul Stone dropped away. He was tugged backwards, away from the light, through the planes of existence and when he opened his eyes again, he was alone in the lab by Steve’s shield and the two relics that had started all this and brought him here.

That had brought him Steve.

Tony knew three certainties in his life: one, that the scientific method prevailed, mostly; two, that anything was possible; and three, that despite the time and space that had separated them, he got to meet Captain America, meet Steve Rogers, and call him a friend.

He wiped the tears from his face, smiling at the fading light and the silhouette of the man he loved fading with it.


	13. (Epilogue) That Promise I Kept

Tony was on his way to the helicarrier for an emergency meeting. Thor had taken the Soul Stone back to Asgard for safekeeping but PLASM had kept the Tesseract for their Containment Units. And because of Murphy’s Law, Thor’s brother had shown his face on Earth and had promptly stolen the damn Tesseract and Clint right from under Fury’s nose. Fury, meanwhile, had promoted the Avengers to a full SHIELD special response team to any and all crises, paranormal or not. Tony had also been promoted to a full member of the Avengers as an emergency response and he didn’t know if he should have accepted it. In the end, the world needed help and he’d be damned if he was going to step away.

Steve would have wanted to help.

He flew himself to the helicarrier, refusing the Quinjet ride. In the hanger, he queried JARVIS on his phone and JARVIS helpfully displayed camera feeds from the meeting rooms. The cameras in Conference Room Five were on a loop; looks like they were already there. So much for throwing everyone off by arriving early.

“I knew they talked about me behind my back,” Tony muttered, swiping the screen blank.

 _The rest of the world enjoys it as a lucrative past time,_ JARVIS displayed on the screen. Tony snorted. JARVIS continued, _Given they are SHIELD personnel, it seems highly likely that they would congregate to discuss matters pertaining to their umbrella of employ. Or perhaps they are simply excited to be meeting you after you had secluded yourself so thoroughly._

“JARVIS,” Tony said, stuffing the phone into his inside pocket. ”Your voice of reason is sometimes _not_ the reasonable voice I want to listen to.”

Three months since Steve had moved on and Tony thought he was doing admirably well. He’d tried, in the first month, to brush up his knowledge of souls, _actual souls_ , but his case had been the only one that was documented in any detail. There were hints here and there of other Class Fours who had been whole souls but they were old and the evolution of language had not helped with those accounts. He knew he couldn’t have kept Steve roaming in this world, present but not, but he also wondered if there’d been anything else he could have done. Hadn’t Steve bargained with the Stone to revive Tony? Could Tony have done the same for Steve, somehow, without a body? Thor hadn’t known, but surely, Tony could have figured it out?

In the end, the Stone had been taken to Asgard, and Tony had been left with uncertainties and an empty space by his side. The paranormal activities had lessened with the manifestation and stabilization of the Soul Stone and he’d taken on a more hands-off role with his consulting. He’d not gone on a mission with the Avengers and hadn’t been to a single meeting in person. He knew the others had been trying to get in contact with him but he’d passed them all on to Larry-what’s-his-name, his PA. This would be his first time facing the team in a long while and he was a fashionable twenty minutes early when he breezed into Conference Room Five with a confident smile pasted to his face.

“Fury, I’m having trouble believing that you’ll be keeping the repulsor engines out of SHIELD datab—“

He stopped.

There was another man standing at the conference table. The man’s back was to Tony, but Tony had been studying the back of that head of blond hair for nigh on a year and he would be damned to the tenth circle of hell before he could forget the sight of it. There was also a round shield on his back – white star on a blue field with concentric circles of red and white around it.

As Tony continued to stand by the doorway with his jaw slacken like a fool, the man turned around and one - solid - Steven Rogers stood to face Tony with an open but neutral expression. There was no recognition in those blue eyes. There was none of the amusement. None of the glinting playfulness. None of _Steve_.

The man, _Steve_ , held out a hand toward Tony and Tony stared down at it, jaw tightening.

“You must be Mr. Stark,” Steve ( _Steve)_ , said. “I apologize for intruding but,” he looked to Fury, the only other person in the room, and Fury sighed but nodded, and Steve ( _Steve!_ ) gave Tony a small, formal smile, “I had business with Colonel Fury and…” he trailed off.

Tony realized that he was still staring at the outstretched hand without moving to take it.

_Steve._

Slowly, as if weighted in lead, Tony reached up and took Steve’s hand in a stiff handshake, feeling the tingle of warmth radiating from Steve’s palm and into his own. Tony had always thought that Steve would have callused hands and he hadn’t been mistaken. He was touching Steve. Outside of a dream. He almost expected his hand to fall through but _he was touching Steve._

And Steve didn’t even know who he was.

“Nice to meet you,” Tony said without looking up. He couldn’t look. “Enjoy your stay. So. New member. I got it. Nice being updated. I’ll see you when I see you.” And he turned tail and left the room.

Three turns and a dark empty conference room later, Tony collapsed onto a cold leather seat and held his head in his hands. He drove everything from his mind and focused on bringing his breathing back under control.

_Steve._

How? It was Steve, wasn’t it? It was definitely Steve Rogers. Captain America. Did SHIELD find his body? Did they always have his body? Why couldn’t he remember Tony? Did his memories not carry over to his body, or had it never been the real Steve that Tony had spent time with? Maybe it had never been real—

A soft touch brushed against his shoulder and Tony lurched to his feet, swinging an arm wildly behind himself to ward off whatever was there. Backing away to the other side of the room, he shoved his hand into his pocket for his phone as he glared at the doorway.

Steve— _Cap_ was standing there with his hand still outstretched. He was outlined by the doorway, with the light from the corridor glowing around him in a parody of Tony’s final moments with Steve. Tony tensed his hand on his phone but didn’t initiate the emergency protocols. He straightened and brushed his other hand down his jacket, not to smooth out the nonexistent creases, but for an excuse to look away from the man standing before him.

“Captain,” Tony said, still looking down at the hem of his jacket, “I believe the meeting is in Room Five.” He stuffed his hand into his pocket and lifted his head, unable to resist seeing Steve’s face once more. Cap had lowered his hand but didn’t make to move anywhere. “If this is a consultation visit, my official consulting hours are—“

“—Nine to Five every other Thursday, Tony. I know. And you’re not a consultant anymore so don’t pretend otherwise.”

Tony narrowed his eyes. “Then if you know the time and day, you’ll also note that this is officially outside of consulting hours so I’m afraid you’ll need to get in line and make a date with Hill who will make a date with Fury who will make a date with Larry-what’s-his-name who will make a date with JARVIS who—“

“How about a date with just you?”

What? Tony snapped his mouth shut and studied the Captain’s dimly lit features as the other man slowly walked towards him. He couldn’t make out the expression. He thought he saw recognition there but his brain was probably just playing wish fulfillment with him.

“What?” Tony asked out loud.

“A date,” Cap ( _Steve?_ ) repeated, drawing closer still. “Anywhere I want to go. And I want to go to Coney Island. Just the two of us. I’ll win you a bear and buy you cotton candy.”

Tony didn’t want to believe it. “Steve?”

And Steve smiled. It wasn’t the poster smile. It wasn’t the Captain America smile. It wasn’t formal. It was Steve’s smile. Steve’s happy, boyish smile, with the small curl at the corner of his mouth and twinkle in his eye. It was the smile Tony liked to believe was reserved for him alone.

“You took my hand,” Steve said, quiet. “And I felt the warmth. I remembered.”

And Tony wanted to believe. He needed to believe. He launched himself forward, trusting that Steve would catch him - and he buried his face into Steve’s neck when warm arms wrapped around him, caught him.

“How’d this happen?” Tony said shakily, lips brushing at the skin beneath them. He felt hands rest on his back and waist. They were so warm. “How are you alive?”

Steve coughed, and Tony drank in the sound and the feeling of its vibration at his lips. “They always had me. I couldn’t be revived, until. Until I'd moved on.”

“You didn't come find me, you ass.” Tony slapped a hand hard on Steve’s hip. Steve jumped but held on tighter with a startled laugh. “So Fury lied to me? Again?” Tony couldn’t even bring himself to be angry at Clint and Natasha anymore. "Lying liars."

“I would’ve come to find you. And, well,” Steve's arms tightened around him, "they didn't want to bring your hopes up for nothing."

Tony slapped at Steve again. “If this is a dream,” Tony said, his voice starting to shake, “then I want out. Now.”

The hand at his waist lowered to pinch at his ass and Tony yelped, leaning back to give Steve a mock scandalized look. Steve chuckled and Tony felt the vibrations run through him. This was real. Steve was real. And he was solid. And he _remembered Tony._

”Not a dream,” Steve said. “We’re having another moment.”

Tony felt the warm hands on his back and waist tighten, and he clung on, burying his face into Steve’s neck again. He realized then that his cheeks were wet and he started laughing. He giggled louder, even as Steve pulled back. Steve’s thumbs swiped through the wetness on his cheeks and Tony reached up to press Steve’s hands tighter to his face.

“Do I want to know the joke?” Steve asked, amused.

Tony only giggled harder. He was aware that he was probably freaking Steve out, so he shook his head and drew away, turning to rest his hands on the conference table, letting the hysteria subside into gurgling chokes as he tried to control his breathing. Steve stood behind him, a hand rubbing gently on Tony’s back as Tony tried to regain his sanity. Tony thrilled at the casual touch. It was something Steve would do. And now he could. He really could.

And Tony broke into a fit of laughter again, choking slightly on the tickling in his throat and doubling over at the pain in his stomach. He swiped at his cheeks with his palm and tried once again to control himself. When he was no longer gasping for breath he turned around and studied Steve’s face, now lit by the dim light from the corridor.

Steve had a confused expression but was holding it back with a smiling grimace and Tony almost felt like laughing again.

This was real. This was _real_. Steve was solid and human and alive and _his_. Anything was possible, right? Three certainties in life, and Tony thought he should just live by the second one.

Slowly, deliberately telegraphing his moves, he brought his hands up to frame Steve’s face. Steve shifted a hand to cover one of Tony’s and pressed his cheek into Tony’s palm. Tony felt the other hand pressed to his chest, right over the arc reactor. He could feel the warmth there, warmth from Steve’s hands, and Tony felt joy bloom in his chest for the first time in months.

“I never thought I’d have another chance to do this right,” Steve said softly.

“How about we try this again,” Tony said, thumbs brushing gently over Steve’s skin.

Steve smiled, and Tony drew him in until their lips touched in a press of warmth and promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah, okay! I hope that was as enjoyable as it was for me to write it! To disambiguate, I enjoyed writing it very much!


End file.
